Fix blurry display of Standard DESK at high screen scaling

In this section

• Summary
• Situation description
• Cause
• Steps
• Known limitations

Summary

When screen scaling is set above 100% (typically 125%, 150%, 175%, or 200%), Standard DESK renders its interface with a blurry appearance. This is because the application is not DPI-aware by default. Starting with version 8.8.17, each user can enable sharp rendering in their Personal Settings.

Situation description

The issue occurs in the following scenarios:

• Desktop PCs with two monitors set to the same scaling level
• Laptops connected to a docking station (sharp rendering is currently only possible when the laptop display and external monitor use the same scaling level — see Known limitations)
• Multi-monitor RDP sessions to a Windows Terminal Server

Text and icons appear soft or blurry. Only the Standard DESK is affected. The Pro Client (a WPF application) already renders sharply at high DPI and is not impacted.

Cause

Standard DESK is based on WinForms and runs as DPI-unaware by default. As a result, Windows scales the entire application interface after the fact as a bitmap, rather than the application rendering natively at the appropriate resolution.

Steps

Each user can enable sharp rendering individually in their Personal Settings:

1. In Personal Settings, under General, enable DPI scaling.
2. Restart Standard DESK. The setting takes effect when the application launches.
3. If display issues appear in certain views, disable the option in Personal Settings to immediately revert to the previous behavior.

Note

This feature is disabled by default and must be explicitly turned on. Existing installations are unaffected by this change unless the feature is activated. Activation is done on a per-user basis in Personal Settings. The feature is currently only available in German; no additional translations are planned.

Known limitations

• The current implementation only provides sharp rendering when all monitors involved use the same scaling level (this includes RDP sessions).
• When monitors use different scaling levels (e.g., a docking station with a laptop display at 150% and an external monitor at 100%), the interface does not yet automatically rescale when a window is moved between monitors. This functionality is planned for a future release.
• The future release will require at least Windows 10 version 1703. Older systems will automatically remain on the current rendering behavior.