When connected to a Windows 2008 R2 remote desktop session, you cannot change the size of the text on your screen (font size / DPI settings).
If you go to “Control Panel” – “Display” you see the message: “the display settings can’t be changed from a remote session.”.
Especially for users with large screens and large resolutions, this can be a real problem.
If you would change the text size settings when not connected to a remote desktop session, windows changes the corresponding values in the registry under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics.
I created a simple tool which lets users change their text size in a remote desktop session.
When starting the tool, users will be presented the following options (which are the same as the display settings in control panel):
After selecting the text size, the tool will change the corresponding values in the registry and the user will be prompted to log off. After logging back in, the new text size will be applied.
The tool can be downloaded here: Change Text Size
Some more info XP specific
http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/large-fonts-registry-exactly-t2695627.html
This was exactly what I was looking for. Unfortunately it crashes on launch for me, either as a user or admin. Is there something I’m missing?
Hi Brad,
The application requires .NET framework 3.5 or higher.
I tested it on Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2.
If your environment meets these requirements, send me and e-mail with the error report and I will take a look at it.
Hey Michel,
Thanks heaps for the tool, works great. Just found one issue.
I ran the tool, changed to one of the larger sizes (doesnt matter which) which worked fine. The issue occurred when I re-ran it, changing the size back to normal. This changed the fonts back as it should have, but it seems the icon spacing wasn’t corrected after the change. Example below –
Pre change –
http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/9065/prechange.jpg
Post change –
http://img808.imageshack.us/img808/8539/postchange.jpg
Any idea why it would be doing this?
Hi Cameron,
The issue you have is related to the fact that the normal button does not revert back to the original state on your server.
Each button has hard-coded registry values behind it (the values are stored under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics), which I captured on a clean Windows 2008 R2 server.
For example, the normal button has a iconspacing value of -1665 and your initial iconspacing value will probably have been something different.
If you want, e-mail me directIy and I can compile you another version of the tool with the correct iconspacing values for you environment.
Sweet, thanks Michel!
Hi Michael,
Can I ask for a copy of the updated utility that would restore the icon spacing as the user switches from one DPI to the next.
Thanks!
Just found this tool while researching this limitation of remote desktop. Works wonderfully, thanks for writing that up!
I think I actually prefer this to the DPI change. Some of the software we use doesn’t like the DPI change very well and it pushes some of the windows out of view, etc.
I appreciate the help getting this to work with different default settings. Works great!
Wow, awesome. why cant this be a free download via Microsoft’s website so all their users can take advantage of this tool. Thanks!
Just what I needed! As they say in the Chinese blogs, “DING!”
Michael -
I was wondering if your tool will work for an ICA session too.
Hi Mike,
Yes, the tool works for ICA sessions in XenApp and XenDesktop.
Thanks for your response.
thank you for this program!
greet from Germany
Works great !!
Thank you very much.