Remote Desktop between two Windows 10 machines, how to disable DPI synchronization

Question

I work on a Windows 10 laptop, using Remote Desktop into another Windows 10 machine elsewhere.

What I do on my local machine (personal stuff: email, browsing, Excel) and on the remote machine (work stuff: Visual Studio development, various internal applications) have very different needs in terms of ideal display scale.

By "scale" I'm referring to Settings -> System -> Display -> Scale and layout -> Change the size of text, apps, and other items.

For my personal machine, the best display scale is the Windows 10 default of 125%, but for the work machine, the best display scale is 100%.

Unfortunately, Remote Desktop automatically uses the client scale to determine the remote scale. If the client is at 125%, the remote machine comes in at 125%. If I want 100% on the remote machine, I have to first set my local machine to 100%.

Is there any way to unlink these two so they can be independent? Config setting? Registry setting? Anything?

I found a solution for this exact problem but it only applied to 2012 server. Looking for one that works on Windows 10. Did a lot of searching, apologies if this is a duplicate and I missed it.

And because this is connecting to a work machine at the office, I don't have the option of using a different remote client, it has to be RDC.

Clarification added later: the apps I run on the remote machine are all written for a minimum of 1920 X 1080, so with my laptop being also 1920 X 1080 I cannot run the remote session in anything less than full screen. Also I live in that environment for hours and so need Windows keys (like Alt-Tab) to work. Hence - must be full screen. I realize that if I opened the remote session in a smaller resolution, the scaling would be 100% irrespective of the scaling on the client, but - not an option.

Answer 1

I found an answer that works well. Posting it here in case anyone else has this problem in the future and is not familiar with the following.

Apparently (I didn't know this), in Windows 10 there are two different Remote Desktop applications. There is "Remote Desktop Connection" and "Remote Desktop App". You can see them if you do a search for "Remote":

These are not the same.

Remote Desktop Connection is the classic one that I have always used (and thought was the only one), looking like this:

And Remote Desktop App is a Windows 10 app that looks like this:

Remote Desktop Connection reads and writes .rdp files and does not give the option of adjusting the target scaling factor.

Remote Desktop App does not read .rdp files, you set up the target machines within it as "saved desktops", but it does give the option of adjusting the target scaling factor. In fact, the display settings are exactly the ones that were posted by Bob as used by UWP Remote Desktop, which makes sense if UWP is using the same RDP protocol, it's probably using the same app. However Remote Desktop App is free and comes with Windows.

Since I connect to both a Windows 10 machine and also to a Windows 7 machine, I tested both the Connection and App versions against both target machines, to compare behavior and performance.

The App was considerably slower connecting to the Windows 7 machine. But given that Windows 7 doesn't have a concept of "125% scaling" anyway, I don't need that feature, so I stayed with the Connection version.

The App and the Connection version were pretty much the same speed when connecting to the Windows 10 machine, so for that one I switched to the App.

Final result: I'm using Remote Desktop Connection to talk to Windows 7, and Remote Desktop App to talk to Windows 10. My client machine is at 125% scaling. The target machines are at 100% scaling. All running full screen.

The problem is now solved and I thank everyone for your assistance.

Answer 2

I found the best solution to a similar (but opposite?) issue was to use the UWP Remote Desktop app (via MS Store). It still uses the same RDP protocol, so should be able to connect to any machine the classic Remote Desktop client can.

Within the connection-specific settings, you have the option to specify an exact resolution and DPI scaling - the latter is not possible with the classic Remote Desktop client:

If you specify a fixed size, the UWP Remote Desktop app will instead stretch the display locally if you enter full screen mode. This is controllable via an app-global setting:

Answer 3

If I'm understanding your goals correctly, there is a registry key called "IgnoreClientDesktopScaleFactor" that might do what you need. It's documented here, as part of a KB for a RemoteApp issue: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3026738/remoteapp-window-is-too-large-or-too-small-when-you-use-rdp-to-run-a-r

Basically, you would disable DPI synchronization by setting IgnoreClientDesktopScaleFactor to zero (edit: this has to be done on the server though - the client machine won't read this key). While the KB article is about RemoteApp, the registry key doesn't just apply to RemoteApp - it should work in full desktop sessions as well. It's worth noting that disabling synchronization doesn't automatically make the remote DPI configurable though - it apparently just reverts to 100%, though that happens to be what you want anyway.

After a quick check it looks like this key does still work as of Windows Server 2019 (roughly equivalent to Windows 10 1809).

Answer 4

In Windows RDP, open the Options (lower left), then Display Tab, and set the remote machine resolution. This can be different than the local machine.

My local machine is Windows 10 Pro 1920 x 1080 125% scale. I have RDP'd to a client Windows 10 Pro machine and I set it for 1366x768 (so I do not have to scroll it). But the machine resolutions and scale are not linked.

Did you try these settings?

Answer 5

Unfortunately that's not an option.

All our internal applications that we run at the office are written for minimum 1920 X 1080 resolution, and people who work there directly have much larger screens and it's not an issue for them.

But I work remotely from a laptop, and since 1920 X 1080 also happens to be my laptop's resolution, in order to see 1920 X 1080 on the remote machine, I need the remote machine to have 100% scale, full screen.

The other reason for full screen is because I work in that environment for hours and need the windows keys (like Alt-Tab) to work correctly in the remote machine.

When I run my local machine for personal stuff, though, the 125% default scale is much easier to read.

So - need to remote in, full screen, local machine has 125% scale, remote machine has 100% scale.

Based on your suggestion, though, I tried setting the screen resolution to 1920 X 1080 (meaning, in the dialog box, in the remote machine resolution, one notch to the left of "full screen", it gives the full size). What this does is:

It opens in NOT-full-screen mode (RDC has a title bar, windows keys don't work within the RDC), 100%, no matter what scale I have on the client.

• If my client machine was at 100% before starting the RDC, then I can double click on the RDC title bar and it will go into full screen mode.

• If my client machine was at 125% before starting the RTC, then double clicking on the title bar will NOT go into full screen mode.

In other words, I'm not yet able to get that ideal of full screen but scale is independent.

I'm open to suggestions...