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Scaling issue with Dock

ruinah

Member
I know I've seen posts but this is whacky. I use the native resolution on my SP3 with 200% scaling so when in tablet mode or desktop mode both are easy to read and use fingers on. I don't always want to use metro apps. I have the official dock and just using a Mini Displayport adapter to DVI. When I dock the SP3 at work I have to go into and change the scaling down to 100% or else all the icons on the 22" widescreen I am using are huge. Of course as stated in other posts you then need to log out. If I have it set to 100% and then I undock, the icons and screen on the SP3 are so small I can barely read them or tap icons. I have to go into scaling, go back to 200% and then sign out and back in.

I know there is no current fix for this right now but this is so frustrating. I want to be able to undock, walk away, and have it change to the scaling I need without a manual adjust and sign in/out. It's hell when I have to run to a meeting from my desk and I want to take notes in OneNote.

Is this something we could see a fix for eventually? I feel like I read that "that's the way it is" which is not great for those of us who go back and forth all day between docked life and tablet life.
 

dleuen

Active Member
While I don't have an answer I do agree that the handling of different monitors is completely messed up. I thought Windows 8.1 was supposed to fix it. I'm a software developer and while I agree it is a hard problem I don't think it is any harder than many of the other problems we have to solve everyday. At least it would or should be easy enough to go back to the native settings when you undock as you suggest.
 

bluegrass

Well-Known Member
I thought I was on to something when I saw the checkbox that said "Let Me choose one scaling level for all my displays". You would think that if you uncheck that box you could select the monitor you wanted to set the scaling to on an individual basis and two separate scaling levels but I couldn't get it to work.

One thought I had that would take someone smarter than I am to pull it off. I thought maybe a script could be written to execute the scaling up for when you were in the tablet mode and a second script to change it for the docked mode. Maybe the scripts could be executed from tiles on the Start screen.
 

malberttoo

Well-Known Member
I know I've seen posts but this is whacky. I use the native resolution on my SP3 with 200% scaling so when in tablet mode or desktop mode both are easy to read and use fingers on. I don't always want to use metro apps. I have the official dock and just using a Mini Displayport adapter to DVI. When I dock the SP3 at work I have to go into and change the scaling down to 100% or else all the icons on the 22" widescreen I am using are huge. Of course as stated in other posts you then need to log out. If I have it set to 100% and then I undock, the icons and screen on the SP3 are so small I can barely read them or tap icons. I have to go into scaling, go back to 200% and then sign out and back in.

I know there is no current fix for this right now but this is so frustrating. I want to be able to undock, walk away, and have it change to the scaling I need without a manual adjust and sign in/out. It's hell when I have to run to a meeting from my desk and I want to take notes in OneNote.

Is this something we could see a fix for eventually? I feel like I read that "that's the way it is" which is not great for those of us who go back and forth all day between docked life and tablet life.

It definitely is an issue for sure, and an annoying one. With the seemingly high popularity of the SP3 and strong sales (so they say), perhaps it will be a higher priority now for Microsoft to fix.

With at least 2 Surface MVP's on this forum, we can hope at least that the complaint has been run up the flagpole...
 

antsmarchin

New Member
I don't know if this will help, but when I dock I change the project screen options and select use second screen only. Sometimes I'll have to reboot (5 seconds is not going to kill me), but when it comes back up, the second screen scales properly with my big monitor on the desk. When I undock, the surface screen naturally comes back on. Though not ideal, this might be something to look at!
 
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