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The multi-monitor being discussed here is Windows 10 treating each monitor as a unique resource -- unique start menu, unique task bar, tracking window positions on a monitor to the matched task bar, that sort of thing.
All of the LLL / PLP / PPP game-spanning-across-all-monitors topics are unique to the hardware vendors who basically fool the underlying Windows OS into thinking there is one BIG monitor with {x * y} resolution device; the summation of various monitors that the driver has abstracted. In a perfect world (*) the application itself would manage the multiple display devices in a sensible way. To be far more realistic, the gazillion permutations of monitor resolution, refresh rate, orientation and scaling in which an app would have to account for is patently absurd.
Could Windows "solve this" in a future state? Perhaps. Today, it's on the hardware vendors.
Also, to be clear, this is NOT what Hydravision or NView "fixed" in prior versions of Windows.
All of the LLL / PLP / PPP game-spanning-across-all-monitors topics are unique to the hardware vendors who basically fool the underlying Windows OS into thinking there is one BIG monitor with {x * y} resolution device; the summation of various monitors that the driver has abstracted. In a perfect world (*) the application itself would manage the multiple display devices in a sensible way. To be far more realistic, the gazillion permutations of monitor resolution, refresh rate, orientation and scaling in which an app would have to account for is patently absurd.
Could Windows "solve this" in a future state? Perhaps. Today, it's on the hardware vendors.
Also, to be clear, this is NOT what Hydravision or NView "fixed" in prior versions of Windows.
OK, understood.
I'm not actually talking about games here, just having a desktop work without surprises(*). To my simple brain the OS is the "best" place to solve this, in the sense that as you allude to placing the burden on the app writers is unrealistic. The OS should be in the best place to know and manage the details of the display surfaces.
(*) surprise being that when you reboot, the GPU driver decides either that your "main" L is a P, and/or that your secondary P's are primary L's despite them being half the size in pixels, and worse still that you only have one monitor not three, and which one of the PLP it decides you still have depends on the phase of the Moon. Many fun hours spent with my head tilted horizontally trying to use the mouse at 90 degrees to the screen to get to the driver page. Never again AMD, thanks.
I'm not actually talking about games here, just having a desktop work without surprises(*). To my simple brain the OS is the "best" place to solve this, in the sense that as you allude to placing the burden on the app writers is unrealistic. The OS should be in the best place to know and manage the details of the display surfaces.
(*) surprise being that when you reboot, the GPU driver decides either that your "main" L is a P, and/or that your secondary P's are primary L's despite them being half the size in pixels, and worse still that you only have one monitor not three, and which one of the PLP it decides you still have depends on the phase of the Moon. Many fun hours spent with my head tilted horizontally trying to use the mouse at 90 degrees to the screen to get to the driver page. Never again AMD, thanks.
So, if we ignore gaming (a singular logical display surface spanned across irregular physical displays) and instead focus on Windows' ability to manage individual physical displays in their own unique orientation and resolution -- then yes, Windows 10 addresses that.
I have a LPL configuration for my work development desktop and never had issues with Windows 7 using the native functionality, no vendor specific pps to configure them. The only time I have to redo the layout and tell windows which one is portrait is when I completely disconnect everything to move it and end up plugging monitors in differently the next time (as in monitors simply in a different DP port). This is using the onboard Intel with the built-in DVI+DP+DP ports on my optiplex so maybe it's just better with Intel?
For the most part, the discrete resolutions / orientation thing worked as far back as XP. Being able to manage them as their own unique desk space (disparate task bars) never happened until at least Win 8, and being able to uniquely manage DPI settings per-monitor at the OS level didn't happen until Win10.
talking about multimonitors and win 10 and high DPI, its still not ready, this has been the current state for the last 2 months (left is from turning on, right is if I log out and log in)
multi monitor
lets fix the single monitor first (btw I have dual monitors & believe me fixing win 10s handling of high DPI needs to be fixed first)
Whatever you just posted isn't Windows 10 DPI scaling. That's something wrong in the user configuration -- the "Icon" size setting is whacked out all super big, and/or the "icon text" setting is all whacked out super small. It's a personalization thing, not a DPI thing. The DPI scaling is linear; built-in OS things for the most part are "invisibly" scaled which includes icons on your desktop. This is why it's obvious that your screen cap has something else wrong.
You can tell higher DPI is in effect for older applications that do not natively support the feature when the window contents (primarily text) may appear to be "fuzzy" from the interpolation. Steam's client window is a common example. You can simply override this behavior by modifying the properties of any shortcut to an app, selecting the compatibility tab, and unticking the option for "Display scaling for high DPI" or something like that.
Edit: Is this an upgrade from a prior version of Windows? If I was a betting man, I'd say your prior version of Windows had the DPI setting up super high, which makes the fonts big but didn't change the icons. I would then bet that you (or someone) then went in to the personalization settings and turned down the icon text size without understanding why they were huge in the first place.
After the upgrade, Win10 started "correctly" managing DPI, but it kept the personalization setting put into place previously, which was meant to counter the affect that Win10 has now fixed. The end result is -- Win7's broken-ass DPI was being corrected by your personalized font change, but now that Win10 has fixed DPI ,your personalized font change has 'broken" it.
You can tell higher DPI is in effect for older applications that do not natively support the feature when the window contents (primarily text) may appear to be "fuzzy" from the interpolation. Steam's client window is a common example. You can simply override this behavior by modifying the properties of any shortcut to an app, selecting the compatibility tab, and unticking the option for "Display scaling for high DPI" or something like that.
Edit: Is this an upgrade from a prior version of Windows? If I was a betting man, I'd say your prior version of Windows had the DPI setting up super high, which makes the fonts big but didn't change the icons. I would then bet that you (or someone) then went in to the personalization settings and turned down the icon text size without understanding why they were huge in the first place.
After the upgrade, Win10 started "correctly" managing DPI, but it kept the personalization setting put into place previously, which was meant to counter the affect that Win10 has now fixed. The end result is -- Win7's broken-ass DPI was being corrected by your personalized font change, but now that Win10 has fixed DPI ,your personalized font change has 'broken" it.
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Its a Fresh install. Heres a screenshot, top = what happens if I boot machine (automatic log in) , bottom = logout and log in (with the same and only user on machine)
I have NO apps set with the compatibility tab, the funny thing is some apps, dialogs etc get scaled, some dont.
Its not a biggy as its quite easy to fix, log out and then log in, its just weird such an obvious in your face bug is still there months after I first noticed it
I have NO apps set with the compatibility tab, the funny thing is some apps, dialogs etc get scaled, some dont.
Its not a biggy as its quite easy to fix, log out and then log in, its just weird such an obvious in your face bug is still there months after I first noticed it
It seems that now Microsoft allow pirate copies of Windows 7 and 8 to be eligible for upgrading to Windows 10. A classmate purchased a new PC which cost about 1000€ a few days ago (a great machine) and he installed Windows 7 pirate a couple of days ago, he immediately got a notification and the famous icon to upgrade to Windows 10. He upgraded already, there was no need at all to go through a timed selection to install the OS.
Good to know, I've got one box that was running the Win10 Enterprise Preview and didn't get the final upgrade to a legal Pro license. I'll go back it out to WIn7 (where it was months ago) and let Microsoft upgrade it for me
Blazkowicz
Legend
I remember reading about it monthes ago : warez Windows 7 would be able to upgrade to Windows 10 but the article said it would have full-on spyware. Just like that Preview version, i.e. real key logger and screening the files you open etc.
Though I don't know what happens if the pirate Windows 7 version is "genuine", which is common.
Though I don't know what happens if the pirate Windows 7 version is "genuine", which is common.
Multi-monitor and scaling in Windows 10 actually does mostly work. At work I have one monitor set to 2x scale and my main monitor set to 1x scale. I say mostly because I think two things are happening: 1) many applications (even Chrome) are programmed (I think) to take the scale value of your default monitor 2) there's a bug (perhaps intended?) where Windows doesn't update the scale value it reports to those applications until you sign out and back in again.
So if I open Chrome, it looks fine on my default (1x) monitor. But when I move it over to my other monitor, it only applies "naive scaling" (Chrome renders as if it's 1x scale and then Windows applies 2x scaling on top of that), which looks ugly. If I force chrome to scale at 2x (disable Windows dpi scaling and set Chrome scaling through launch options), it looks great again. Now if I set my 2x monitor as the default monitor and then log out/log in, the reverse becomes true. Chrome looks fine on my 2x monitor, but when I move it to my 1x monitor it becomes ugly (Chrome renders as if it's 2x scale and then Windows applies .5x scaling on top of that). Once again if I force Chrome to scale at 1x, it looks good on my 1x monitor.
The only thing I should note is Edge does not suffer from these issues. No matter what my default monitor is (or when I set the default monitor), Edge scales correctly as I move it between monitors (Edge always does the scaling, Windows never applies scaling on top of it). I believe Edge will even adjust correctly after changing the scaling values without having to log out and in again. So Chrome and Edge must have different methods of determining what scale it should use. And whatever method Chrome uses (which I suspect VLC also uses) does not quite function correctly on Windows 10. I don't know if this is a bug or intended (perhaps Chrome is using an outdated api?), but you're correct in that the end result is not optimal.
What I think is happening to you is (for whatever reason) on a cold boot your scaling gets reset to 1x and then after logging in it gets set back to the correct value. But this is too late for many programs, requiring you to log off and in again.
Thanks for the thorough explantion willardjuice that could be it (though I use firefox), I tried edge and it does seem to work, though with other MS apps its sometimes do, sometimes don't, thus I also assume its an API thing, and the API fits better with DPI scaling, I assume they're using a method I suggested here in a post a few months ago. I think I will just set it so I have to log on, each time the PC boots, which should be a temp fix until MS solves this issue.
I used LibreOffice for a while and it's ridden with bugs, the presentation is lackluster -though very easy to use-...and fortunately my teachers switched to Office and you can learn more with it.Its a Fresh install. Heres a screenshot, top = what happens if I boot machine (automatic log in) , bottom = logout and log in (with the same and only user on machine)
I have NO apps set with the compatibility tab, the funny thing is some apps, dialogs etc get scaled, some dont.
Its not a biggy as its quite easy to fix, log out and then log in, its just weird such an obvious in your face bug is still there months after I first noticed it
Plus Office 365 is free. Sure, it says that you can enjoy it fully for a time then you need to pay, but you don't actually need to pay a dime. When the full demo expiration date comes, nothing will happen. When you are working on a document there is a red line saying something about purchasing it, but Office is still fully functional.
You do know that after 3 months of not paying for it, it deletes all the spaces from your documents?
Infinisearch
Veteran
Really? That don't sound real.
I didn't. Which documents if I may ask? The ones you create with that particular trial version or does it wipe every single document in your computer? Is that for real? I use Office 2013 Student, so I don't have that problem, I paid 140€ for it back in the day.
I knew what I said because of a classmate and friend who downloaded the new Office as a trial and didn't pay for it yet, and he told us that he didn't need to pay after the expiration date and it still worked, there was only the aforementioned red line...
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