#94: Text is blurry with DPI scaling 150%

The interesting thing about this is that the blur occurs in the statusbar and in the menu as well, which are components managed directly by the system. I've come to believe, that this is some sort of a bug in the Windows 8, since all older versions of Windows are okay. We shall raise this with Microsoft. Let's see what they think about it.

MS Notepad taken from WinXP also has this problem when launched on Win7.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2900023 Disable DPI virtualization for the application. To do this, right-click the application’s shortcut and then click Properties. On the Compatibility tab, select Disable Display Scaling On High DPI Settings, and then click OK. This causes the text in the application to appear clearer. However, if the application does not correctly handle high DPI settings, this procedure may have adverse side effects such as truncated text and incorrectly sized graphical elements.

For applications that do not scale correctly for use on high-DPI displays, Windows enables a feature that is known as DPI Virtualization. This enables the application to run as if it were on a lower-DPI display. Windows will then scale up the application's graphical display appropriately so that it is shown at the appropriate visual size for the high-DPI display. However, this has the side effect that the application's text and graphics will not be as crisp and clear as an application that is natively rendering its output for use on a high-DPI display.

Be sure that your icon (.ico) files have an additional 256 x 256 resolution version to make them look attractive at high-DPI settings in list views with large icons. For more information on creating .ico files and the suggested sizes and scaling factors at high-DPI settings, see Design Concept Guidelines for Icons.

To change the DPI Setting in Windows XP - Right-click the Windows desktop, and then click Properties. - Click the Settings tab and then click Advanced. - On the General tab, in the DPI setting drop down list, choose Large size (120 DPI), and then click OK. - To see the changes, close all of your programs, and then restart Windows.Screen shot showing how to change DPI settings in Windows XP To set a custom DPI setting in Windows XP - Right-click the Windows desktop, and then click Properties. - Click the Settings tab and then click Advanced. - On the General tab, in the DPI settings drop down list, choose Custom settings. - In the Custom DPI Setting dialog box, in the Scale to this percentage of normal size list, enter the percentage you want, and then click OK. - To see the changes, close all of your programs, and then restart Windows.

DPI virtualization can cause input issues. In versions of Windows from Windows XP through Windows 8, drag-and-drop operations no longer work during virtualization due to the misalignment of an application's coordinate space when it is remapped to the system's coordinate space during scaling.