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Taskbar and desktop icon display issues when using multiple monitors with different DPI scaling levels in Windows 8.1


View products that this article applies to.

Symptoms

Consider the following scenario:
  • You have a Windows 8.1-based computer that has multiple display monitors in an extended configuration.
  • These monitors use different DPI scaling levels.
  • The Let me choose one scaling level for all my displays check box is not selected in the Display item in Control Panel.
In this scenario, you encounter one of the following issues.

Issue 1
When you move application windows from one monitor to the other, the window is resized correctly to reflect the scaling factor of each display. However, desktop icons and the taskbar icons are not scaled independently for each display. They are scaled to match the DPI scaling of the display that is selected as the primary display monitor. Therefore, they appear larger or smaller than usual on any secondary display monitors.

Issue 2
If you reduce the display scaling, or you use the Display item in Control Panel to select a different monitor as the primary display monitor (by using the Make this my main display check box), the taskbar icons are reduced correctly. However, the taskbar itself remains larger unexpectedly.

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Cause

Cause of issue 1 
This issue is a known design limitation in Windows 8.1. The taskbar and desktop items are not independently scaled for each monitor when the monitors use different DPI scaling settings.

Cause of issue 2 
This is a known problem in Windows 8.1.

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Workaround

To work around issue 2, you can log off the computer and then log on again. 

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Status

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

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Keywords: kbsurveynew, kbexpertiseinter, kbprb, kbtshoot, kb

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Article Info
Article ID : 3016516
Revision : 1
Created on : 1/7/2017
Published on : 11/24/2014
Exists online : False
Views : 246