7

I recently attached two high DPI displays to my Windows 8.1 desktop PC. As a result I put the scaling (found at Screen Resolution > Make text ... larger or smaller) to 200%.

This has been an adventure, with some things working well and other things working poorly.

But one thing is really disrupting my routine: When I try to remote desktop into this PC from my Windows 7 laptop, everything is HUGE, to the point of being almost unusable. Please see

enter image description here

for comic effect.

Googling around has revealed a lot of people with the reverse problem -- Remoting into legacy systems from a client with a high DPI display. The suggested solution there is to use Remote Desktop Connection Manager. I tried this and can't find any settings that fix my problem.

I am also prevented by remote desktop from turning the scaling off remotely, so even that is not viable as a workaround.

Is there a way to escape this 'kids mode', and just have the remote show at normal 100% zoom?

mstsc.exe on the Windows 7 client is version 6.1.7601.17514. I tried installing the RDP 8.0 update for Windows 7 but this did not appear to make any noticeable difference.

update:

per cdavid's suggestion I updated my RDP on the Windows 7 client with http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2830477 mstsc.exe now shows version 6.1.7601.18540.

But it doesn't seem to matter in my case.. everything is still huge.

I logged off (with a shutdown -l) and back in several times. I have tried setting my client to my native resolution, fullscreen, and fullscreen+all monitors, all checks under experience are selected.

Improve this question
3
  • RE RDCM: "go to the 'Remote Desktop Settings' tab of the Properties and select 'Same as client area'" Is that option not there for you?
    – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007
    Commented Oct 22, 2014 at 19:49
  • Same as client area is a displayed option, but selecting it does not change my issue, unfortunately.
    – Jim Noble
    Commented Oct 22, 2014 at 19:56
  • Just for the sake of information -- What version of the RDP client are you using on the Windows 7 machine?
    – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007
    Commented Oct 22, 2014 at 20:11

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
1

RDP 8.1 (latest version) attempts to do DPI-scaling redirection (match the DPI on the server side with the DPI on the client side). This only works if the session that is started on the server side is a new session. Why? Unfortunately, DWM (window manager) and explorer can not change the DPI dynamically (it requires a logout).

So, the "solution" that you can try is to log in, open CMD, run shutdown -l to logout, wait until it logs you out and then attempt an MSTSC connection again. This should give you a new session and once MSTSC connects to the machine, it will "remote" the DPI settings, thus making things look normal.

There are cons to this:

  • you lose your existing session
  • it takes time to do this
  • when you will login locally to the server, everything will be tiny :) (because the DPI settings persist - so you will have to login again :( )
Improve this answer
1
  • FYI - things got better with Windows 10 - the DPI scaling happens on the fly for most of the UI elements.
    – cdavid
    Commented Sep 27, 2015 at 9:39
0

The most up to date info on scaling/zooming and remote desktop is in this response: https://superuser.com/a/1031862/15466

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .