Vista DPI Scaling: Cannot disable DPI Scaling for Wireshark

Question

I'm trying to disable dpi scaling for Wireshark, except Windows won't let me:

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Yet i pick any other random executable in the folder, uninstall.exe for instance, i can do it fine:

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What gives?

i know Microsoft won't let you turn off scaling for their own signed applications:

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But that's not the case here.

i also checked the wireshark.exe manifest, in the hopes of finding a clue there, only to discover that Wireshark isn't designed to run on Windows:

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Why won't Windows let me disable high dpi scaling on wireshark.exe?

+1 for thinking of checking the manifest. :) Have you tried running the "Compatibility Wizard" to see how it reacts? What edition of Vista is this?
i'm experiencing this on Windows 7, but presumably it applies to all versions of Windows that support dpi scaling, and the ability to turn it off (introduced with Windows Vista)
OK, what Edition of 7 is it then? Pro, Starter? 32-bit? 64-bit? It helps to formulate an answer when we have all applicable information. :)
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit. It begs the question, does the edition of Windows (Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise, Ultimate, N, KN, VL) affect the ability to set compatibility flags?
Probably not in this case, but knowing it's 64-bit from the get-go would have helped. ;)

techie007 · Answer 1 · 2011-11-10 15:09:49Z

If the software you are using (Wireshark in this case) is 64-bit, then the compatibility boxes will be unavailable.

You can try setting the compatibility flags directly in the registry which are at the following registry location:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers

In that key, create a (string) entry as such:

Incredible. i had no idea that 64-bit apps couldn't be shimmed through the UI. Adding the registry key manually solved the issue. Great job!
I think it's because they figure there's no reason to make a 64-bit application "compatible" as they won't be "legacy" in the first place (currently, anyway :) ).

1 Answer