1080P resolution too small? Also found something interesting...

[paulwpark]

I bought my surface pro to replace my aging Lenovo T61p notebook with 15 inch monitor (1680x1050). I really want to be able to travel light when I travel for work and I love the Surface but when I am trying to "work" with my surface, the small text is getting to be a problem. I do a lot of RDP/Citrix sessions and even when I change the scaling on my surface to 125%, when I log onto the remote servers and workstations, the resolution is back to 1920x1080 and 100% scaling. Remote sessions aren't allowed to change scaling. So instead of changing scaling, I thought when I am not outputting to external monitor, I would change my resolution to 1600x900. After changing the resolution, when I go to the start screen, the tiles are 4 tiles high instead of 3 I was getting at native resolution. I thought Microsoft set it where the screen size dictated the number of tiles on the screen and not the resolution. I expected the WinRT side to remain the same. Anyone else notice this?

I am not decided on how to deal with the small screen size at native resolution. I will have to see what is a good compromise. But I would love to see more tiles at once when I am in the native resolution. Anyone know of a hack to allow more tiles? Registry edit?

[UPDATE] found a way to display more than 3 rows of tiles...

Go to Regedit

go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WIndows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
Create new Key called Scaling
Then Create new String Value called MonitorSize and set to 15.4

go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\WIndows\CurrentVersion\ImmersiveShell\Grid
Modify Layout_AvailableHeightCells to 5
Modify Layout_MaximumAvailableHeightCells to 5
Add new DWORD (32-Bit) Value called Layout_MaximumRowCount and set to 5

Reboot

 

[Sin]

As for the number of rows on the Start screen, check out http://www.surfaceforums.net/forum/microsoft-surface-faq-guides/2414-tile-rows-surface-rt.html. The necessary registry changes for RT are 12.1 for Monitor Size and 125 DPI. This produced 4 rows of tiles and kept the on-screen keyboard at a normal scale. Not sure if the Pro would be the same, but should be a good starting point.

 

[GTIMKVI]

Curious if you've found any relief for the resolution/scaling issue into an RDP session? Even if I set the resolution on a desktop mstsc session, it doesn't scale to full screen and the experience is horrible on the SurfacePro.

Also, have you found a way to adjust the resolution on the Windows 8 Remote Desktop App, (the metro app from the store).

thx

 

[Uncensored2008]

Has anyone else who does a lot of RDP noticed that while navigating Server 2003 can be a challenge, requiring a mouse of the stylus, Server 2008 appears to be touch aware?

 

[ArnoldC]

RDP sessions on my Surface RT and Windows 8 Enterprise has always been full screen without any borders. I prefer the Modern UI Remote Desktop.

 

[polbit]

I bought my surface pro to replace my aging Lenovo T61p notebook with 15 inch monitor (1680x1050). I really want to be able to travel light when I travel for work and I love the Surface but when I am trying to "work" with my surface, the small text is getting to be a problem. I do a lot of RDP/Citrix sessions and even when I change the scaling on my surface to 125%, when I log onto the remote servers and workstations, the resolution is back to 1920x1080 and 100% scaling. Remote sessions aren't allowed to change scaling. So instead of changing scaling, I thought when I am not outputting to external monitor, I would change my resolution to 1600x900. After changing the resolution, when I go to the start screen, the tiles are 4 tiles high instead of 3 I was getting at native resolution. I thought Microsoft set it where the screen size dictated the number of tiles on the screen and not the resolution. I expected the WinRT side to remain the same. Anyone else notice this?

I am not decided on how to deal with the small screen size at native resolution. I will have to see what is a good compromise. But I would love to see more tiles at once when I am in the native resolution. Anyone know of a hack to allow more tiles? Registry edit?

[UPDATE] found a way to display more than 3 rows of tiles...

Go to Regedit

go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WIndows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
Create new Key called Scaling
Then Create new String Value called MonitorSize and set to 15.4

go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\WIndows\CurrentVersion\ImmersiveShell\Grid
Modify Layout_AvailableHeightCells to 5
Modify Layout_MaximumAvailableHeightCells to 5
Add new DWORD (32-Bit) Value called Layout_MaximumRowCount and set to 5

Reboot

I have to say that RDP at full 1080p res is a plus in my book, but you definitely need the wedge mouse for ultimate experience. This is actually one of the selling points of the Pro for me.

 

[GTIMKVI]

Thanks for the reply. I also personally favor the 1080p resolution. However when you RDP to another server, that resolution may not be conducive to that environment. Using the Widows 8 RDP app, you can't explicitly set a resolution or your scaling for a session, at least not that I'm aware of. Using the desktop MSTSC, you can set resolution, but not scaling, and the MSTSC window re-sizes as a window within the SurfacePro native 1080p screen. So now you are right back to tiny text on a server where you don't want tiny text.

My first reaction was there's gotta be other RDP clients that scales or manages the session differently, but I have not been able to find any relief for this.... :-/

 

[magicrobots]

If you're able to install the Splashtop host on your host machine, you get full control over resolution with the splashtop client - it is an awesome RDP alternative.

 

[GTIMKVI]

@magicrobots....thanks for the suggestion. I ran across that on the Windows 8 store and saw some favorable reviews. The challenge is that there are over 100 hosts and I was hoping to get something that worked natively, so I wouldn't have to install a 3rd party. Someone recommended Bozteck. That's too heavy of a software. I need a simple RDP client that manages resolution/scaling well.

 

[cg123]

Hello. If you wish to enable scaling in the native desktop RDP client (mstsc), save the connection details and then open the .rdp file in notepad and add this line:

smart sizing:i:1

This might help somewhat, sorry if I misunderstood the issue. I set remote resolution as appropriate and then use that setting to scale it to the machine I happen to be connecting from.

 

[ximoosea]

This worked so well and really makes the Pro interface much more efficient. Thank you!

I bought my surface pro to replace my aging Lenovo T61p notebook with 15 inch monitor (1680x1050). I really want to be able to travel light when I travel for work and I love the Surface but when I am trying to "work" with my surface, the small text is getting to be a problem. I do a lot of RDP/Citrix sessions and even when I change the scaling on my surface to 125%, when I log onto the remote servers and workstations, the resolution is back to 1920x1080 and 100% scaling. Remote sessions aren't allowed to change scaling. So instead of changing scaling, I thought when I am not outputting to external monitor, I would change my resolution to 1600x900. After changing the resolution, when I go to the start screen, the tiles are 4 tiles high instead of 3 I was getting at native resolution. I thought Microsoft set it where the screen size dictated the number of tiles on the screen and not the resolution. I expected the WinRT side to remain the same. Anyone else notice this?

I am not decided on how to deal with the small screen size at native resolution. I will have to see what is a good compromise. But I would love to see more tiles at once when I am in the native resolution. Anyone know of a hack to allow more tiles? Registry edit?

[UPDATE] found a way to display more than 3 rows of tiles...

Go to Regedit

go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WIndows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
Create new Key called Scaling
Then Create new String Value called MonitorSize and set to 15.4

go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\WIndows\CurrentVersion\ImmersiveShell\Grid
Modify Layout_AvailableHeightCells to 5
Modify Layout_MaximumAvailableHeightCells to 5
Add new DWORD (32-Bit) Value called Layout_MaximumRowCount and set to 5

Reboot

 

[GTIMKVI]

Hello. If you wish to enable scaling in the native desktop RDP client (mstsc), save the connection details and then open the .rdp file in notepad and add this line:

smart sizing:i:1

This might help somewhat, sorry if I misunderstood the issue. I set remote resolution as appropriate and then use that setting to scale it to the machine I happen to be connecting from.

Gave this a try. On my surface I have 1080 with 150% scaling. When I connect to a server at "full screen"....I get 1080, but with 100% scaling....so back to the super small unusable font.