How to setup custom DPI below 100% on Windows 7?

Windows 7 itself won't let you do that, directly. Here are the options you get:

Windows 7 "Custom DPI Setting" dialog

You can find that by choosing Control Panel > Appearance and Personalization > Display and then clicking the "Set custom text size (DPI)" link in the left panel.

You can actually get numbers other than those shown by dragging the ruler, but it won't let you select something smaller than 100% ... nor can you type in something smaller than 100%; it won't take. 500% seems to be the upper limit.

Microsoft has a good article describing this feature: Make the text on your screen larger or smaller.

So ... if what you're asking can be done at all, it would likely be through some kind of hack. If I find one, I'll come back and update this. But, officially I think the answer is "you can't do that."

UPDATE: OK, there is a registry hack. I found details here:
Save your eyes with DPI Scaling in Windows Vista (Post 8 of 24)

Quoting techrepublic.com user MetaPop here:

Use at your own risk, the side effects are not known.

1. Be careful:
Create a restore point.
Export registry to a file to save it.

2. Edit Registry:
REGEDIT
Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG, Software, Fonts
Name=LogPixels value is 96 decimal.
For 90 percent font size, set to 86 decimal.
For 80 percent font size, set to 76 decimal.

Close REGEDIT and reboot the computer.

3. If some text appears too small or blurry try different value or
return to 96 dpi.

If that does not work or partially (just at the log-in screen) then you may also have to make the change at the registry location: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop, Name=LogPixels. follow steps above (tested in Windows7 SP1).

Chris W. Rea

Posted 2009-12-08T00:31:21.007

Reputation: 10 282

for XP reboot is needed, for 7 relogin only but for 8/8.1 usually it is applied on the fly except manual registry modification. then for 8/8.1 only reload is needed as in 7. but what is for win10. maybe reinstall :D who knows what will come in with the future fixes :D – Znik – 2016-02-23T07:53:36.257

3Not working in Windows 10? tried both methods – laggingreflex – 2016-04-05T15:53:46.117

Same I figured out. Anyone can tell why MS did it in that way? – Maniero – 2009-12-08T00:42:41.587

MS probably restricted it likely because settings less than 100% may break text rendering in some software. BTW, note the update above; there is a way, and it is a hack. Be careful, YMMV. – Chris W. Rea – 2009-12-08T00:53:28.793

it works alright but with some applications font settings below 96 don't go down too well. – None – 2009-12-08T01:07:59.187

2I've learned there are some aplications that don't handle it too well. Namely fullscreen games often the mouse will stop working for the bottom and right 205 of your screen if you are set to 80%. Also Aero Snapping has a lot of issues as well. I know this is an old post but this site is usually about collaboration so I hope no one minds me adding this. – Sean – 2014-01-22T07:08:59.027

2Rebooting isn't necessary to make the change effective; it's sufficient to log off and log in again. – gm2 – 2014-04-03T19:39:12.850

How to setup custom DPI below 100% on Windows 7?

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