How do I correct display scaling issues on Surface Pro 4

Anonymous
2016-02-19T16:31:28+00:00

I'm noticing display scaling issues and docking issues on the Surface Pro 4.  I'm using the docking connector and have two Dell 24" Ultrasharp U2415 monitors.  When I undock the Surface, the text is aliased very poorly on the Surface display, not crisp as it should be.  Certain elements appear fine, but my browser, Outlook 2016, and other apps have poor quality text.  A restart is required to get the text back to its normal hi-DPI quality. 

Secondly, if I start a program while undocked and dock the surface, some apps are scaled up (both text and UI elements of the window) and others are fine.

Lastly, a few times when the SP4 is docked and I return from being away for a few minutes, my external displays don't kick on.  Clicking the mouse or pressing keys on the keyboard do nothing.  Occasionally, the SP4 display will activate and my mouse/keyboard will control work.  I've tried disconnecting the dock connector, power cycling the dock, but only restarting the SP4 will correct this issue.

In general a restart is required to resolve any of these issues.  Is this the result of buggy display drivers or something else?

I've installed the latest SP4 firmware update and have the latest OS updates through Windows Update, as of this morning, February 19, 2016.

Surface | Surface Pro | Display and screen

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Anonymous
2016-04-28T16:48:01+00:00

Hello SP4_user11,

A lot of work was done in Windows 10 to support high resolution screens, such as the Surface Pro 3, Surface Pro 4, Surface Book, and third-party laptops and tablets with screen resolutions above 1080p. However, there are issues that occur when using Office apps on these devices when connecting to an external monitor with a lower resolution.

To find out more about what has been improved and what is still being worked on, please check out these articles:

The current and future improvements are dependent on having Windows 10 Creators Update installed. So if you have not yet updated, please start with that.

Best Regards

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-10-17T18:59:39+00:00

    I've had it on 3 SP4, with 3 different docks, and a multitude of cords from different companies.

    1. I have a hard time believing it's the cord
    2. I have a hard time believing that the only solution is to kill explorer.exe and reload (which doesn't fix everything), OR to log out and back in all the time, OR to set the scaling to 100% on the sufrace screen
    3. I have a hard time believing that with all the reports here, on other forums, on blog posts, about this EXACT same problem, that NO Microsoft employee never had this exact issue, EVER.  Come on!!!  Does anyone use the SP4 and dock at Microsoft?

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-10-17T00:18:19+00:00

    Please send us a photo of the cord you are using.

    Regards.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-10-14T15:39:13+00:00

    I concur.  I'm not sure why the problem is not yet recognized as universal by Microsoft.  It must be a Win 10 quirk. But it really takes away from the tablet aspects of the Surface.

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-10-14T14:18:36+00:00

    The troubleshooting steps in the provided link are pretty basic and have been tried on multiple users' setups. I literally have hundreds of these deployed and every one with an external monitor using 100% scaling, regardless of the display resolution has this problem. I think Windows 10 does not understand how to adjust scaling "on the fly", or how to use "mixed scaling". The surface internal display is 200% and the external displays are 100%.

    Trying to set the Surface internal display to 100% (not feasible for daily use) appears to not cause the problem when undocking/re-docking. I'd say Windows needs to be fixed at this point, as the combination of hardware does not change the problem whether it's different docks or different external monitors or even different display cables.

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