Microsoft details high-DPI scaling improvements coming with Windows 10 Creators Update

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Updated on April 8, 2017

by Pradeep Viswav

updated on April 8, 2017

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Microsoft today detailed the high-DPI scaling improvements that will be delivered as part of upcoming Windows 10 Creators Update. If you are running multiple monitor setup with different resolutions, these improvements will make your life a lot easier. Read about them below.

If you’re running desktop applications that don’t render well on a high-DPI display, you can now force the application to run as a DPI-unaware process. You can enable this functionality in the .exe properties of the app and you can select from one of the following options.

Setting	Effect
Application	This forces the process to run in per-monitor DPI awareness mode. This setting was previously referred to as “Disable display scaling on high-DPI settings.”This setting effectively tells Windows not to bitmap stretch UI from the exe in question when the DPI changes
System	This is Windows’ standard way of handling system-DPI aware processes. Windows will bitmap stretch the UI when the DPI changes
System (Enhanced)	GDI Scaling

System (Enhanced) is a brand new feature in the Creators Update that results in text and primitives rendering crisply on high-DPI displays for GDI-based apps only. For applications that are GDI-based Windows can now DPI scale these on a per-monitor basis.

Microsoft is bringing Per-Monitor DPI awareness support for Internet Explorer. Now, when you move an IE window from one monitor to other with a different resolution, it can dynamically DPI scale.

As you all know, desktop icons would also not DPI scale if you were running in “extend” display mode with multiple displays containing different DPI/display scaling values. With Windows 10 Creators Update, Microsoft is fixing this issue.

Apart from these improvements for end users, Microsoft is also delivering several new improvements for developers to improve high-DPI display support for their applications. You can read about it here. Microsoft is also planning to release an updated high-DPI documentation for developers soon.