Why do some programs not rescale when moving across monitors on Surface 3?

Anonymous
2014-09-19T15:57:18+00:00

One of the nice features of the Surface 3 Pro is that in a multiple monitor setup (which I use a lot), windows will scale when I drag them from my primary display to the external one(s). That is, the scaling that is done to increase the size on the high DPI Surface screen is removed when I drag to en external monitor with a lower DPI. Very nice!

But, while this is nice, it doesn't work for all windows programs. Why? My example is, of all things, PowerPoint. Word is fine. Excel is fine, Firefox is fine, so is Thunderbird, Windows Explorer, etc. But when I use PowerPoint on my external monitor, the ribbon bar takes up 10-15% of the screen! Add to that the menu and such and I have less than 75% of my screen for actual work.

Is there anything one can do to fix this?

Microsoft 365 and Office | PowerPoint | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2015-05-18T14:41:20+00:00

Thank you for this pointer. Seems that this does, indeed, fix the problem (for me, at least).

For my setup (Windows 8.1, Surface Pro 3, Office 365 - Office 15) the specific instructions are few and simple:

  1. Go to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15\root\office15
  2. Right-click on powerpnt.exe.manifest and change the permission so you can modify the file
  3. Right-click on powerpnt.exe.manifest and open with Wordpad
  4. Change the line

    <dpiAware>True/PM</dpiAware>

    to

    <dpiAware>False/PM</dpiAware>

  1. Save file

(at least with Office 365, you don't need to do anything in the registry as it's already looking at the external manifest file.)

Yes, line 4 seems counter-intuitive, but it's correct. Once you change this to False, Powerpoint will scale moving from high to lower DPI monitors. I've not encountered any other issues, but I've not used it for very long, yet.

Thanks to the previous pointers/authors for this tip.

(Do read

http://www.danantonielli.com/adobe-app-scaling-on-high-dpi-displays-fix/

if you want more details and the history of this.)

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-08-30T12:16:10+00:00

    I just tested this as well, removing the /PM seems to have the right effect.

    I.e. PPT scales correctly across both screens, and I don't seem to have the fuzziness that appears when you change the setting to False.

    Just need MS to fix this across the board now so that other apps work properly, for example skype for business...

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-08-28T19:18:19+00:00

    if we change the manifest line to

    <dpiAware>True</dpiAware>

    without the /PM part, it seems to maintain the hiDPI on my macbook retina screen and yet a normal dpi on the external display.

    Powerpoint version: 16.0.7167.2040

    Windows 10 Pro

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-08-22T19:12:02+00:00

    I looked at the manifests from Excel and Word (which don't seem to have scaling problems, at least not in my case) and the corresponding line is <dpiAware>True</dpiAware>, notice it doesn't have the \PM, nor it is set to FALSE (which will cause the blurriness).  

    It seems to me some people at Microsoft keeps forgetting/ignoring to update the manifest for PowerPoint.

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-08-22T18:24:54+00:00

    I think this is somewhat missing the point.

    Changing the manifest file is a work around. I can confirm this makes Powerpoint "work" on multiple screens however when back on a single screen the laptop (I'm on Windows 10) is fuzzy which annoys me so I have to switch the dpiAware setting back again, depending on whether or not I happen to be using multiple screens or not.

    I can put up with this for the time being however there are lots of other apps which don't work at all, for example Skype for Business is hopeless on the second screen - It doesn't scale at all.

    I was hoping a proper resolution to this problem (pun intended) would be included in the anniversary release however it does not seem to be fixed yet.

    Very poor show Microsoft.

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