WinPE 4/5 and font scaling issue

[DirkM]

I just started working with WinPE 4 (Windows 8) and WinPE 5 (Windows 8.1) and ran into a strange font scaling issue.

On UEFI based machines Microsoft decided in its infinite wisdom to not honor the display settings provided via answer file anymore. Instead they use the EDID to detect the maximum resolution and use that. So instead of allowing me to use 1024x768 on all machines I now have to deal with machines that run WinPE at 1014x768 (all BIOS based machines) and those with several other resolutions (i.e. 1600x900 and 1920x1080).

On my 1600x900 machine, WinPE 5 sets the screen size properly and doesn't scale fonts (they are left at 100% = 96dpi). On my 1920x1080 machine WinPE5 scales the fonts to 150%=144dpi. The dpi settings are correctly identified by notepad and the Winbatch status bar extender but not by the Winbatch dialogs. Winbatch dialogs appear very small on a high resolution screen. When I run the same Winbatch dialog on Windows 8/8.1 (the full version, not the PE version) it is scaled properly. It almost looks like MS implemented this "feature" very badly as many other things or they just changed the rules without telling anybody (like they did with the version cheating).

Before I start yelling at MS again or spending weeks on updating my Winbatch dialogs to look at the dpi settings and display different dialogs dependent on the applied dpi settings I was wondering if this is something that can be fixed in Winbatch.

Thanks,
Dirk

[Deana]

WIL Dialogs are based on what we call "Dialog units" . Dialog units are based on the system font, DPI, and screen resolution. System font is defined as the default font defined by Windows. Dialog Units basically speaking: 1 width unit = 1/4 width of system font and 1 height unit = 1/8 height of system font.

Unfortunately Dialog units are not likely to change in WIL Dialogs.

There is a WinMetrics function that you can use help you figure out what current Dialog unit size is.

Please see: http://techsupt.winbatch.com/webcgi/webbatch.exe?techsupt/tsleft.web+Tutorials+Screen~Coordinates~Explained.txt
http://techsupt.winbatch.com/webcgi/webbatch.exe?techsupt/tsleft.web+WinBatch/Dialog~Editor/Dialog~Editor~version~6.X+Dialog~Units~Explained.txt

[DirkM]

Thanks Deana,

I started converting my dialogs because I expected that answer. It's Microsoft's fault anyway because dialogs scale properly under Windows, just not under WinPE. I'm sure they will "fix" that as soon as I have all my dialogs converted.

Dirk