Photo Gallery slideshow full screen in Windows 8.1

Anonymous
2013-11-04T04:50:50+00:00

I don't recall whether the upgrade caused this, i.e., whether fullscreen was functional in Photo Gallery for Windows 8.0 slideshow. Either way, my question is whether or not fullscreen will be implemented in future versions of Photo Gallery slideshow for Windows 8.1 or whether I can do something at my end to activate it now. Apparently fullscreen was available in the Vista version judging from Web chatter but several sources say it is not implemented in Windows 8 and that the Windows Experience Index (WEI) must be above 4 something to allow the fullscreen option. Since the WEI was eliminated in Windows 8.1, I am wondering if that is the problem. My equipment is very new (Dell XPS 2720) with a large high resolution (2560 x 1440) screen. Photos viewed in Photo Gallery slideshow have a large black area to the right and black areas above and below and the photo is not centered. Perhaps it is not possible to implement a fullscreen version, but if that is the case, it should be at least mentioned. Since Photo Gallery has many other useful features, I hope there is something I am doing wrong.

Windows for home | Other | Music, photos, and video

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Anonymous
2015-09-21T18:12:17+00:00

For anyone who is still trying, I found a simple solution!

I am a long time user of photo gallery and have a kind of love/hate relationship with it. I recently discovered this issue after upgrading from windows 7 to 10.

It took me about 30 minutes to find this solution, so unless this is not working for others and just for me, shame on you Microsoft (sorry, couldn't help myself)

So.... here goes:

  1. Locate the Photo Gallery .exe file, in my case and most likely for anyone else:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Live\Photo Gallery\WLXPhotoGallery.exe

  1. right click and select properties.
  2. open compatibility tab
  3. put a tick-mark in "disable display scaling on high DPI settings"
  4. click apply
  5. close properties

Now startup Photo Gallery and try a slideshow.

Please let me know if it worked for you, as it did for me.

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Anonymous
2015-09-21T23:31:50+00:00

Thank You! Finally a solution that works. Why have Microsoft not publicised this?

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-11-15T00:47:39+00:00

    Hi Tom and James,

    Thank you for providing us those information. We are trying to further isolate the exact cause of this issue. We would like to gather more information as this would really help us in our investigation:

    • Can you please verify if the monitor that you used is the same monitor prior to upgrading to Windows 8.1?
    • What is the current resolution of your monitor? Did you recently changed it?
    • Can you try to lower the screen resolution and check if it would make any changes to the slideshow view? You can follow the steps in this link to change the resolution.

    We are looking forward to your reply.

    Thanks.

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-11-12T16:39:28+00:00

    Hello Tom and James,

    We appreciate your cooperation. I've escalated this issue to our support specialist. We will keep you posted on the progress of the issue.

    Thank you!

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-11-11T18:48:47+00:00

    Glenda:

    I have tried it both ways, always the same result when the viewer is Photo Gallery. I usually go to the File Explorer, right click on a photo in a file and "open with" Photo Gallery, since my default viewer is not Photo Gallery. Alternatively, I have gone to the Photo Gallery app in the Start screen and open the folder either by clicking on the slide show option at the bottom right of the screen, at the top of the screen, or by pressing F12. I have tried all of the themes with the same result: large black areas to the right and bottom of the screen. If I select the "Photos" app instead of Photo Gallery, the slide show utilizes the full screen. Seems like the capability to use fullscreen is there in "Photos," just needs to be implemented in Photo Gallery.

    Many thanks for your help.

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