Windows 10 DPI Scaling

I’ve resisted the high DPI screens for Windows machines for a number of years - mainly due to the cost of the screens. However, I’ve since upgraded a number of items and they now have larger screens.

My monitor is now a Dell S2719DC 27" which has a display of 2560 x 1440 and my Surface Pro 7 has a resolution of 2736 x 1824. Both of which require some Windows scaling to adequately use from my point of view.

Since I’ve started using the scaling, I’ve found issues with Windows scaling. The main issues seem to be from moving between a docked and undocked Surface. Moving between the two means that the Surface has to either be restarted or logged off and in again.

A quick search indicates that this is a known and ongoing Windows issue, based on how Windows sets the scaling on log in.

However, it doesn’t make life any easier when you open Outlook and find the scaling to be all wrong! The other issue that arises is that it can throw off window layouts within apps - PDF XChange for example changes the width of the thumbnails view on a monitor and the Surface screen itself when used.

It’s a shame that it’s not quite as good as the implementation on macOS, which didn’t have any issues with DPI scaling when I tried it.

And unfortunately, as the Surface uses a 3:2 screen layout, the Microsoft solution of using the same size won’t work either. Perhaps one to watch if I go down the docked laptop route in the future.