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
    2013-11-17T21:08:55+00:00

    Linton_B

    Thanks for your reply and advice. To answer your questions, the monitor is the same. I have a Dell XPS One 27 with a large screen, resolution 2560 x 1440. I have not changed the resolution from its native configuration and am reluctant to do that since I know from experience that it will re-order the icons on my desktop. I have Photo Gallery installed on my laptop running Windows 7 and I can verify that it uses the full screen. The screen is smaller with lower resolution but the pictures stretch across the entire screen without a hint of the blackness seen with the One 27. I vaguely recall that Photo Gallery used the entire One 27 screen with Windows 8.0 before I installed 8.1. Perhaps someone running 8.0 can verify (or deny) that. If needed I can change the resolution on my One 27 later.

    Thanks again for your efforts.

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-11-17T20:20:26+00:00

    Hi Litton,

    My current resolution, recommend by Windows 8.1, is 1680x1050. That is the same resolution I used with Windows 8, Windows 7, and on my previous computer which was running Vista.  I like Photo Gallery very much and have used it almost daily  from the start. I can say without a doubt that Photo Gallery Slideshow displayed photos full screen in Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 with my current monitor at the same resolution until the last day Windows 8 was running. On the first day running Windows 8.1, I had this problem.

    I have tried lowering the screen resolution, but my image quality goes to you know where. That is not the solution.

    I have checked and double checked, all drivers are up to date and my bios is most current. Silverlight is current. I'm using the same hardware as I was using in Windows 8, which is as follows;

    Monitor - Dell 22 inch, E228WFP, a carry over from my previous computer

    Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3H

    CPU - Intel Core i5-3450

    Graphics card - NVIDIA Quadro 600

    Ram - 16.0 GB

    I edit and up load hundreds of photos weekly. Slideshow, at full screen, is a very useful tool to review my edited photos before uploading. You don't know how much I miss it.

     Your time an effort is much appreciated.

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-11-17T18:39:17+00:00

    Hello Litton_B

    I am a new guy with the same problem.

    I am using a Full HD Flat TV monitor for my computer.

    I am using AMD Radeon HD 6570 graphic card.

    I am using AMD Catalyst Control Center.

    The resolution I am using is 1920x1080 and using the Catalyst Control Center software I modify the Scaling option to 0% so the desktop screen will display on all the Flat TV monitor without black border.

    There are 2 problems:

    1. The photo gallery software slideshow:

    The slide show shows the image on the upper left corner. The image doesn't fill the entire screen. When I change the resolution to a lower resolution the image fill more of the screen but there is still black areas. My memory recalls displaying a slide show on windows 8 on full screen. (but there is a chance I have a bad memory :))

    1. The photo gallery screen saver:

    I changed the resolution to 1024x768. The screen saver started to work. It displayed the image in the center with black borders, like it was when I didn't change the scaling option and used default. But I noticed that when I switch back to the desktop screen the display started to flicker a bit. I remembered that long time ago I had that problem. I went to the monitor settings and saw the screen refresh rate on 60 hertz (I think it changed because of the resolution change). I changed it to back to 30 Hertz Interlaced. Doing this change made the flickers go away but when I tested the screen saver it gave me a black screen again and basically didn't work. I changed back to the photos screen saver disappointed.

    Any help to enjoy all features in full screen will be great.

    Thanks,

    Liad

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