Windows 7: DPI Display Size Settings - Change

Hello Smiling Carcass, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Yes, you sure can boot into Safe Mode to change the DPI settings back if you like. I have added OPTION THREE to the tutorial for you to be able to use a REG file download to make restoring the default 96 DPI easier to do.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Thanks, Brink. Back to normal now!. I had tried safe mode with command prompt to find a cmd to rectify this, but the text in the background (behind the cmd window) looked the same size, so I assumed the effect would be there in full safe mode. I followed your advice and I was wrong. Thanks again.

You're most welcome Smiling Carcass. I'm happy to hear you're back to normal now.

Hey, I'm using a 1920x1080 16" laptop and a 26" external monitor but the laptop is a bit far away and I'm having trouble reading small text, is there a way to set custom dpi only for the laptop monitor and keep the dpi at the external at 100% ?

Hello Coldrain, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Sorry, but the DPI settings are applied to all connected monitors. It cannot be applied to only one monitor and not the other.

I think the registry section of the tutorial is incorrect or outdated. I've tested this with Windows 7 SP1, the LogPixels value under FontDPI did not do anything. However, if I add/change HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop\LogPixels, it actually worked.

Hello Windy,

By default, the LogPixels DWORD value is not located in the HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop key location.

The location in the tutorial is the default location for this. If you like, apply the REG file in OPTION THREE to restore the default values, then try the tutorial again to see if it will work for you. Be sure to restart the computer afterwards though.

Well, I did try that before several times and then have decided to report on what I've found.

Changing LogPixels under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontDPI had no effect (even after a system restart).

Changing LogPixels under HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop had immediate effect for the user after logging off and logging back in (a restart was not required).

Also, changing the text size via Option 1 in the tutorial created/changed the LogPixels under HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop.

Now, all my tests have been tested on domain computers, so I'm not sure if that made a difference. I currently have LogPixels under HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop enforced in a group policy, so all computers in the domain would have the same DPI value set.

Here are two supporting threads (if you don't mind me posting offsite links)...

c# - Screen Text size in .NET - Stack Overflow
how to change the windows DPI settings programmatically?

Windy,

Strange. It use to work for the HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\FontDPI location, but it's not for me either anymore.

I have updated the tutorial to use the other HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop location instead.

Thank you for pointing this out.

I have a user that has his DPI set to 150%.

When he runs my game (OpenGL) he has problems with the game draw being magnified off the screen.

Is there a way to set specific programs to use the default given that this does not run in a window?