You seem to be very confused about what is going on. And you are over using pronouns, so I barely understand what you are trying to express.
wasn't sure if it would work with a recent copy of df
I presume by "it" you mean the previously posted phoebus.ttf. Phoebus.ttf is a font. Based on a simple tileset. The (simple) tilesets don't break between versions. The font literally can't break because DF has absolutely nothing to do with your choice of fonts in a terminal. (Unless Toady randomly changes the font mapping or the simple tileset mapping, which would be silly, because every single tileset ever made would break.)
(I think I saw it somewhere, do you know where I can find that?), but I was hoping to get it working anyways.
I presume by "it" you are still talking about phoebus.ttf. Have you tried scrolling up?
Why would I need all those tools to get it to work in windows?
I presume by "it" you are now talking about df2ttf. You need those tools because they are the prerequisites to operating the df2ttf program.
I understand it's python, but df is primarily a windows game with ports to linux second.
Pretty sure "it" refers to df2ttf here. Df2ttf is primarily a linux program with support for Windows second. Windows does not have PRINT_MODE:TEXT, the primary use for df2ttf.
I could put this on a linux box, I have a flash drive with ubuntu. Is that what I need to do?
I am not even sure what you want to do, so I can not say what you need to do.
Fontforge is a bit of a pain to install on Windows. If you already have a linux install kicking around, that would probably be simpler for you.
If you only want phoebus don't bother with any of that and just scroll up.
If you only want one or two fonts and don't feel comfortable installing Python/PIL/Fontforge, ask me and I'll crank them out.