Learn How to View DPI Awareness Mode of Apps in Windows 10
This post will show you how to view DPI Awareness mode of Apps in Windows 10. DPI Awareness includes better support for Hi-DPI apps and displays. Let’s understand what’s the impact of tracking DPI Awareness modes, Desktop applications on Windows can run in different DPI awareness modes.
It is important that you track the DPI awareness mode of your process so as to avoid unexpected behavior. When you use a high-DPI device with external monitors, you experience the issues such as applications, icons, text appear to be fuzzy and blurry text appears in applications or in the Windows interface.
To reduce DPI-related problems an option DPI Awareness column added in task manager that helps to understand which apps are DPI-aware and which apps will appear blurry and stretch on high-DPI displays devices such as a Surface Pro or Surface Book together with external monitors. For more information on DPI awareness, check High DPI Desktop Application Development on Windows.
What is DPI?
DPI is Dots per inch. DPI is a referring method to help programs and understand how a computer mouse (other peripherals) measures physical distance. As per Microsoft documentation “The dots per inch (DPI) of modern display panels being much higher than they have historically been. In the past, most displays had 96 pixels per linear inch of physical space (96 DPI); in 2017, displays with nearly 300 DPI or higher are readily available.”
View DPI Awareness Mode of Apps in Task Manager
To view which of your running apps for Windows 10 is DPI Aware from Task Manager. Lets start the process –
- Open Task Manager in More details view.
- Click on the Details tab. To add the DPI Awareness column, Right click on a column detail name, and click on Select columns.
- Scroll down and Check the DPI Awareness box, and click on OK.
- The following table shows how applications will render under different scenarios:
| DPI Awareness Mode | Windows Version Introduced | Application’s view of DPI | Behavior on DPI change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unaware | N/A | All displays are 96 DPI | Bitmap-stretching (blurry) |
| System | Vista | All displays have the same DPI (the DPI of the primary display at the time the current user session was started) | Bitmap-stretching (blurry) |
| Per-Monitor | 8.1 | The DPI of the display that the application window is primarily located on | Top-level HWND is notified of DPI changeNo DPI scaling of any UI elements. |
| Per-Monitor V2 | Windows 10 Creators Update (1703) | The DPI of the display that the application window is primarily located on | Top-level and child HWNDs are notified of DPI change Automatic DPI scaling of:Non-client areaTheme-drawn bitmaps in common controls (comctl32 V6) |
- You can see DPI awareness of all your running applications on per process basis, also view and sort apps by DPI awareness in the Task Manager.
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