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I have a large app that we are delaying supporting dynamic DPI for. Currently, when we launch our app via RemoteApp (RDP to our Windows Server 2016 server) on a high DPI screen, the text and controls overlap.
As a work around for our customers with high DPI displays, we found the best solution is to set HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server\WinStations\IgnoreClientDesktopScaleFactor to 1. This stops the RemoteApp from using DPI scaling and makes it look decent.
The problem is that the size of the window itself starts off super tiny.
If you change the scaling factor on the local PC and then change it back, it will automatically size the window back up to the correct scaling.
We would prefer to use this workaround instead of adding a mstsc manifest file to our customers' PC's, but we would need to know how to force the scaling to start off with the local PC's settings while still avoiding DPI scaling.
Alternatively you may try in the
.exe
Properties the possible high DPI settings. Maybe some setting would behave better. But the basic problem is that mstc is not DPI-aware. – harrymc – 2019-07-09T20:28:02.973@harrymc we are using the .exe properties as a backup solution, but we will have to distribute our batch file that adds the .exe.manifest and registry setting to the computer to each customer that needs it. I don't understand why mstsc supports running high DPI apps, but when it's set to ignore scaling, Windows only scales the window for it when there's a change in scale. :-( – SkylerJ – 2019-07-09T20:38:21.110
Using an RDP manager rather than raw RDP usually corrects such problems. I have used the old Royal TS, where version 1.5 is still freeware. The downside is that it must be installed on the client.
– harrymc – 2019-07-09T20:56:38.977@harrymc I agree that using mstsc is outdated and likely the cause of this, but I don't have the authority to change applications. Our company and customers are also using RemoteApp protocol, which not many RDP managers support. – SkylerJ – 2019-07-09T21:20:30.013