* Display problems in Windows 10

[Fruitbat]

I've just bought a new laptop running Windows 10 and loaded FH 5.0 onto it. I seem to have all my data and media files but I have serious problems with the display.

The navigation bar and many other fields have shrunk, along with the associated buttons, so as to become unreadable, whereas the Add Facts, etc bar in the Property Box has shrunk vertically, but the text (the top of which is just visible) appears to be about the right size.

I've attached a screenshot of the Focus Window in a test project I've just created specifically for this post. I've added red arrows (not the RAF flying display team) to point out examples of the problem.

Anyone else come across this, or have any idea how to resolve it.

[tatewise]

Nothing to do with toolbar sizes, but did you follow the how_to:family_historian_migration_guide|> Family Historian V5 & V6 Migration Guide that not only ensures your Project data is copied, but also all your customisations and preferences?

I suspect the toolbar sizes are governed by the new Windows 10 high resolution laptop screen. I suspect the only solution (with FH V5) is to adjust your Windows Desktop personalisation to increase the size of toolbars in all applications.

FH V6 has a new Tools > Preferences > Display setting to adjust the size of Toolbars presumably because of the problem you are experiencing.

May be Windows 10 users can advise further...

[mjashby]

I believe Mike is absolutely correct in identifying the higher resolution screen on your new laptop as the likely cause of this 'problem'.

There are some specific settings that you could look at to try to adjust the size of various elements of Family Historian and any other programs affected. From the Windows 10 Desktop, choose the 'Start Button' > 'Settings' > 'System' > 'Display' > Choose 'Advanced Display Settings' > 'Advanced sizing of text and other items'.

A 'pop-up' window will appear (which was 'Control Panel' > 'All Control Panel Items' > 'Display' in previous versions of Windows) and you should see a drop down menu about half-way down the window which allows you to adjust the size of 'Title bars', 'Menus', 'Message Boxes', 'Palette Titles', 'Icons', and 'Tooltips'. It may take some experimentation to get the best settings for your default screen resolution, so it's always best to make a note of the initial settings so you can reset everything if there are any issues.

Hope that helps.

Mervyn

[Fruitbat]

I've tried all the obvious things, like those you suggest Mervyn, but they don't have any effect on the fields in question. The text and icon sizing controls are more flexible than in earlier version of windows, in that you can specify the point size, rather than small, medium and large - the default is 9pt - but as the name suggests, they only control text and icons, not bar height or button size.

[Gowermick]

Eric,
I recently moved to a 40 inch high res (4k) monitor, and like you, with Windows 10, got giant sized Icons and windows.

The easiest way to correct your fonts,text etc is to right click on the screen, then Display Settings. You'll get the option to re-size text, fonts etc all from one slider. When I first moved to my new screen, this was set to something like 350%, but by reducing it to 125%, icons and text shrank to how I wanted them. I can now get three reasonable sized windows across my screen.

[tatewise]

I think the settings you need are in Start > Settings > Personalization > Themes.
Then at the bottom choose Window Color and Advanced appearance settings....

Select items in the drop list lower left.
e.g. Caption Buttons increased from 21 to 35 significanly increased the top right icons.

[Fruitbat]

Eric,
I recently moved to a 40 inch high res (4k) monitor, and like you, with Windows 10, got giant sized Icons and windows.

Hi Gowermick,

I've got exactly the opposite problem - almost invisible bars and buttons. As the screenshot in my original post shows, the size issue doesn't affect the whole display, only parts of it, so tinkering with the slider doesn't help, in fact although it changes the overall display, it doesn't change the affected bits at all.

[tatewise]

I have done a bit of Google searching, and today updated to Windows 10, to discover that the options being discussed have been removed, and can only be restored via a Windows Registry hack, unless somebody with longer experience of Windows 10 knows better.

[RSellens]

Have you tried the compatibility settings (from right clicking the FH icon, and selecting properties, then the 'Compatibility Tab') ? There is an option for disabling some scaling options on higher DPI displays.


Richard

[Gowermick]

Eric,

Is the problem restricted to FH?

[ColeValleyGirl]

In my experience a number of 'older' products have problems with a HD screen (such as I have on my laptop but not my desktop). FH5 was one of them, so I was pleased to see it worted in FH6. Scrivener (writing package that some other family historians use) is another but I have a potential fix to try for that (see below). Older versions of Office products have unreadable, unnavigable installation dialogs. Venerable financial products are particular unusable if they have icons for navigation/setting options.

I've had to be selective about what I try to use on my laptop but I do have the luxury of a desktop as well, which I recognise not everyone has. Asking for advice in product forums sometimes reveals the option of using a 'custom manifest file' or 'external mnaifest file' to have the application tell Windows that it is not HD aware, but it isn't something for the non-technical or faint-hearted to try, and I've no knowledge whether it will work for older versions of FH.

[mjashby]

Have done a bit more internet searching for similar problems and there are plenty of examples, mostly relating to 'older' software which was never designed to work on Hi-Res HD Screens. The Version of Windows in use seems to be largely irrelevant, but Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 do both have some program 'Scaling Controls' that weren't in evidence in Windows 8 or earlier versions of Windows; and these can help in some circumstances.

1. The option suggested above by Richard Sellens to disable scaling for this program may have the desired effect.
2. You could try increasing program scaling in Windows 10 above 100% (an option in Windows 10 'Display Settings'), but that would likely affect your other software as well, which may not be a desirable consequence.
3. If FH 5 is the only software affected, you could consider upgrading to FH 6 which doesn't appear to suffer from the same issue.
4. Finally, although it may seem counter intuitive, you could try reducing your Laptop's screen resolution from it's default 'optimum' setting and check the impacts of that change. You will probably get dire system warnings if you try this that the screen is no longer set for optimal performance, but remember that the 'optimal' setting has probably been chosen by the manufacturer to show up their screen's maximum potential rather than offering the 'best' setting that you may actually need for your chosen software, so unless you do a lot of detailed graphics/video editing or use the laptop to watch a lot of HD Content one of the alternative (lower) resolution options may produce an acceptable compromise.

Mervyn

[Fruitbat]

Hi all,

Thanks for all the replies. Addressing those to which I haven't already responded, in the order they were posted...

1. Mike Tate - I think you might have hit the nail on the head. Not all of the display adjustments in earlier versions of Windows appear in the Control Panel for Windows 10, and it looks like it might need a Registry tweak to correct the problem. I've seen similar Google results, but I don't want to go down that root until I've spoke to HPs help desk on Monday.

2. Richard - Where are you when you click on the FH icon? I don't get a properties option in all the places I've tried.

3. Gowermick - Since posting my question, I've been loading more programs onto the laptop and have discovered that the problem wider than just FH. It even affects Office 365 Home (a brand new download).

4. Cole Valley Girl - Although several of the programs I've loaded are old versions, it also affects new ones.

5. Mervyn - I have tried everything you suggested (except buying FH 6), but the adjustments appear to change everything but the bits with which I have a problem.

It's starting to look suspiciously like a combination of the way HP has set up the machine and the loss of availability of adjustment in the Control Panel. I'll keep you posted about HP's response when I speak to them on Monday.

Thanks again everybody.

[Gowermick]

Silly question, but have you checked for new updates for Laptop or Windows 10?
You may have an out of date component somewhere, which has been updated since your laptop was put together by HP.
May be worth checking.

[RSellens]

2. Richard - Where are you when you click on the FH icon? I don't get a properties option in all the places I've tried.

I have a 'shortcut' on the task bar, but if you also find the actual program (from start bar Richard click and do open file location) you can get the properties.

Richard

[Fruitbat]

Hi Mike,

I've checked HP and MS for updates, but reporting up to date

[Fruitbat]

Hi Richard,

I knew that was a stupid question, but my mind went completely blank and I couldn't think where else to look.

I've now checked the compatibility settings and run the tests, to no avail.

[Fruitbat]

I finally got round to contacting the manufacturer today. As soon as I started to explain the problem, the help desk technician told me that "some" programs will not work properly with a 4k display - the quickness of this response leaves me feeling that I'm not the first to have raised this issue.

During the past few days I've discovered that the "some" include Adobe Creative Cloud products (surprising, given that the manufacturer's blurb for this machine mentions photo editing, and that Adobe's Photoshop and Lightroom are the go-to products for most serious photographers), MS products (including Word and Excel, which are probably the most used office-based apps) and a whole load of others (including FH).

The technician's proposed solution was for me to contact the product manufacturers and ask them to make their products compatible with 4k - I can just see Adobe, Microsoft, Google and a host of others shooting this to the top of their priorities at my request.

As it's of absolutely no use to me, I asked for a full refund and was put through to a member of the sales team. I told him that I was surprised that they don't point out that these 4k machines are not compatible with a wide range of popular products. His response was that they only advertise what it can do, not what it can't do and asked me whether I would like to order a different item. As he'd already told me that the team don't receive any training in applications, so he wouldn't have been able to help me with compatibility issues, I didn't take him up on his kind offer and the machine is going back.

Thanks to everyone who tried to help.

[Valkrider]

Eric

I think you not have been the whole truth. Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom both work perfectly on my 5K screen.

Something you may wish to consider trying if you have an old Windows 7 licence available is to run a Virtual Machine and Win 7 in a window on your Win 10 machine sized appropriately for FH to 1080p resolution. That is, of course, if you haven't returned your new machine.

[Gowermick]

Eric,
I think support is pulling the wool over your eyes, and don't know what they are talking about!
I have a Windows 10 PC with a 40" 4k monitor, and it works fine!! With the 40" width, I can happily have three reasonable sized windows open at once. Every program I run works happily (FH6.2, Openoffice, Thunderbird, Geany, Firefox, Acrobat Reader etc etc), and I have NOT experienced any problems at all.

What they may mean is that their 4k PC's don't work with all software! To say that all 4k PC's have same problem is clearly rubbish.

Mike

On a similar note, when I asked PC World support about a Bluetooth Headset to listen to my TV, I was reliably informed that they won't work with my TV! He wasn't aware that I'd been happily using a pair for weeks but as they were too small, I gave them to my grandson, and was looking for a larger pair to replace them - go figure. Pay peanuts and you get monkeys!

[Fruitbat]

Hi Colin,

I've just finished removing all traces of me from the new machine, for collection on Friday. I have to say that I don't have a lot of faith in what either the techie or the salesperson were saying, I'm just glad to see the back of it so I can start looking for something that meets my needs.

[Fruitbat]

Hi Mike,

I don't have an in-depth knowledge of IT, so to a great extent I'm reliant on what I'm told - but I'm very good at making a note of what they tell me, just in case something goes wrong.

With regard to today's techie and salesperson, they didn't inspire confidence, especially after the former told me that there are other photo editing products that do run on 4k (missing the whole point that I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a £1,100 machine to be capable of running widely used software that can run on machines less than half the price - albeit very slowly) and the salesperson offering to sell me a different PC when he had already indicated that he probably knows less about the system requirements than I do (which, as you might already have gathered, isn't very much).

So, back to searching for something that meets my needs.

[Gowermick]

Eric,
Having just bought a new PC and monitor, I discounted buying a laptop or an all-in-one PC, simply because they generally compromise on components to fit into the case. One component fails and whole laptop/PC is kaput.

I looked around and decided three things that I needed/wanted.
1. A 4k monitor, the bigger the better, with HDMI input.
2. A good proceesor, at least i5 or i7.
3. A good graphics card, that handles 4k and HDMI output.

I had a budget similar to yours, and was struggling to find a large 4k monitor within the budget, until I realised that modern 4k TV's fitted the bill, and were cheaper than dedicated PC monitors. I checked on graphics cards, and found one that fit the bill and made sure the one in the PC was equal to or better.

I ended up with an Acer i5 Pc and a Samsung 40" 4k TV.

Haven't regretted it since, best 50th anniversary present ever

Good hunting with your replacement

Mike
PS I do have a 20 year old degree in computing, but things change so rapidly, it didn't help much with todays modern hardware/software.

[tatewise]

Eric, this may be a silly suggestion, but if you are happy with your Windows 7 PC then why not stay with it, and consider upgrading it to Windows 10 for free. See glossary:windows_10_upgrade_tips|> Windows 10 Upgrade Tips.

[Gowermick]

Mike,

Reasonable suggestion, but I see 2 minor drawbacks to that scenario:

1. The Windows 7 PC must be getting a bit long in the tooth hardware wise, as Windows 7 has been around since 2009. (Using Moore's law, a modern PC will be at least 8-16 times more powerful.)

2. A PC upgraded to Windows 10, is unlikely to work quite as well as one with it pre-installed by manufacture, who would have ironed out all the little niggles with drivers etc.