Powerpoint will not scale properly on second monitor

Note: this applies to Office 2016.

• Close Powerpoint
• Open CMD/powershell as admin

Make a copy of the config file as a backup:

• COPY "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office16\powerpnt.exe.manifest" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office16\powerpnt.exe.manifest.old"

Edit the config file:

• Notepad "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office16\powerpnt.exe.manifest"
• Change "True/PM" to "False", Save and exit
• Re-open Powerpoint.

Using the Powershell/command prompts didn't work for me.  Instead:

• Close Powerpoint
• hit the Windows button
• type Notepad
• right-click the Notepad icon and select "Run as Administrator"
• click "yes" on the following Security prompt
• In Notepad, select File > Open > navigate to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\root\Office16", and select the file "powerpnt.exe.manifest" (note you may need to select "All Files (*.*)" instead of the default "Text Documents (*.txt)" to see this file
• Change "<dpiAware>True/PM</dpiAware>" to "<dpiAware>False</dpiAware>", save and exit
• Re-open Powerpoint

Worked like a charm.

As stated above this is not a solution but at best a temporary workaround with the following major drawbacks:

1. Office Updates will overwrite your changes all the time. Since Office Updates happen silently (in Office 365) you will never know when Powerpoint switches back to its unfortunate erroneous behavior
2. Pen based input does not work with this work-around: Pen input appears at wrong positions on the screen if the DPI-Aware setting is changed
3. Some image types disappear when the DPI-Aware settings are tampered with. I haven't found out exactly which image types are affected, but it has to do with combinations of groups of vector graphics and pixel graphics and transparency.

I still cannot see why MS does not manage to fix this bug. To anybody using Powerpoint on a Surface or Surface Book it only shows how MS is not capable of making one of their flagship software work with all its new flagship features (like pen support) on their latest flagship hardware products.

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As stated above this is not a solution but at best a temporary workaround with the following major drawbacks:

1. Office Updates will overwrite your changes all the time. Since Office Updates happen silently (in Office 365) you will never know when Powerpoint switches back to its unfortunate erroneous behavior
2. Pen based input does not work with this work-around: Pen input appears at wrong positions on the screen if the DPI-Aware setting is changed
3. Some image types disappear when the DPI-Aware settings are tampered with. I haven't found out exactly which image types are affected, but it has to do with combinations of groups of vector graphics and pixel graphics and transparency.

I still cannot see why MS does not manage to fix this bug. To anybody using Powerpoint on a Surface or Surface Book it only shows how MS is not capable of making one of their flagship software work with all its new flagship features (like pen support) on their latest flagship hardware products.

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I couldn't agree more! Not to mention that this is completely unfeasible as an enterprise solution.

Thanks for the explanation as to why the settings I'd changed to make PPT work suddenly reverted to the old problem.

I agree it's extraordinary that MS can't make their own software work on their own hardware platform.

The only work-around I've found its to start up with the second screen only enabled, open PPT, then I enable the Surface screen and open Outlook or whatever in that screen. But even that can get confused and revert to the old problem without rhyme or reason.

We await MS  to solve the problem.