2
Some applications don't scale up well on high resolution screens. One proposed solution to this on Windows (for example, for Adobe CS6 applciations) is to "Enable Windows to prioritise external manifests" with a registry change, then create a manifest for the application that tells Windows to apply its default UI scaling.
I'm a firm believer in not making system-level changes like registry changes without first understanding what they mean. I've tried researching enabling Windows to prioritise external manifests to learn more, but all I find is examples of this hack being used to make various stubborn applications scale on high-resolution screens.
I believe that this registry change essentially enables a certain type of config file (.manifest
) to be read when applications are launched (?). I'd like to understand what the implications of enabling them are. The closest I've found to an answer in my research is this promising but much-less-than-authoritative comment on Adobe forums. I'd essentially like to know if this is true or not:
As far as other implications to the registry change, as long as you don't have other .manifest files along with your executables that are in conflict with those within the executables themselves - which should be very uncommon - it seems to be a change with little downside.
In particular (in order):
- Is it true that this registry change will not affect any system behaviour except for cases where I manually create a manifest file for an application? This article makes me think this is the case. Or does it have other implications (for example, maybe checking for manifests is common enough to slow down certain system processes?)
- Clearly there's the risk of a poorly configured manifest breaking one application. Are there further risks, such as security concerns (malware creating manifests?) which an end user must be aware of before enabling them?
- This MSDN article sounds like it's saying manifests exist to allow application-specific registry overrides. Is that a correct interpretation, in lay terms?
If Windows version is relevant, I'm most interested in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 (in that order).
Great answer! Just to clarify, when you say "embeded in the module itself" do you mean within the binary / machine code within the
.exe
or.dll
? Presumably there would likely be legal issues with tinkering with the internal manifests in something like an expensive Adobe package? – user56reinstatemonica8 – 2015-05-12T15:19:02.450@user568458 Yes, embedded manifest is in EXE files. As it's in the resources area dlls can have them too but I don't know about "manifests in DLL". And, you're right for the legal issues as modifying internal manifest "may" break the license agreement you accepted before using it. With your feedback, changing manifest priority seems to have benefits - it does not touch any binary. Pros and cons in either ways. So the safest way is to get helps from the original developer. – Scott Rhee – 2015-05-12T21:54:52.330