Hyper-V UI updates for High DPI

In the latest Windows Insider builds (14371 and later) we have made some strategic changes to address Hyper-V’s usability on High DPI systems.  But before I get into the details of the changes – one quick thing to talk about:

Hyper-V UI is comprised of two main executables.  Our MMC snap-in (that runs under mmc.exe) and the Virtual Machine Connection (vmconnect.exe).  MMC globally does not support High DPI – so there is little we can do there.  But we can make the Virtual Machine Connection experience better.

Here we have done three things:

1. We have made Virtual Machine Connection completely DPI aware – so there are no clipped graphics or strings at any DPI setting.
2. We have worked with the art department to get new icons for all of Hyper-V – all of which are available at all DPI points:
   
   Side note – this now means that as you scale up your DPI the icons will change and become more detailed.
3. Finally, we have made an important – but subtle – change the the way we display the virtual machine.  If you connect to a virtual machine using enhanced mode – it gets all the DPI information from the host, and does the right thing.  However, if you are using basic mode – the guest OS is unaware of the host DPI.  To address this we will now automatically scale the virtual machine screen display to match the host DPI – but only if you are using basic mode.  What this all means is that you should no longer have to deal with teeny-tiny boot screens or text screens when using Virtual Machine Connection.

Cheers,
Ben

Comments

• Anonymous
  June 23, 2016
  The comment has been removed
• Anonymous
  June 23, 2016
  Thanks Hyper-V team!
• Anonymous
  June 23, 2016
  The comment has been removed
• Anonymous
  June 24, 2016
  What about RDP session ? With SurfaceBook, it's impossible to work with the current DPI definition ...
  • Anonymous
    June 24, 2016
    The comment has been removed
    • Anonymous
      June 29, 2016
      with Remote Desktop Connection Manager my fonts are microscopic...Ok with zoom in RDP but not a true solution...
• Anonymous
  June 24, 2016
  Great, very much appreciated!(Though I wonder why you can't change MMC. Or, why nobody else is improving MMC.)
• Anonymous
  June 24, 2016
  This is fantastic news! Thank you to everyone who made this happen!I do hope that in the future it can be expanded to support Enhanced Session as well as Basic!
• Anonymous
  June 27, 2016
  Will you update the graphic drivers for Linux also to support higher resolutions than 1920x1080?
• Anonymous
  June 27, 2016
  Too bad vmconnect.exe only works with Hyper-V 2016 or higher.Even 2012 R2 isn't supported. Unbelievable. Basically useless in a production environment where no one runs 2016 yet...
• Anonymous
  June 30, 2016
  Thank you so much for this! Been struggling with tiny texts in virtual v on my surface book. However, the new problem now is that since Ubuntu is forced to have its resolution at 1920x1080, the enhanced mode is now making everything incredibly large rather than small.Any help?
• Anonymous
  August 07, 2016
  I just installed anniversary update (14393.10) and now it's just terrible!!!I run a Win10 Pro x64 VM in a Win10 Pro x64 host. Host display is 2560x1440, scaled to 200%.In Enhanced Session, the VM scaling is still 100% which is way too small.In Basic Session, the VM is force to stretch doubled, that means I can only use 1280x720 at max. I used to use 1680x1050 scaled to 150%, but now I can no longer use this resolution, because the VMConnect window has to be scrolled.Btw, I find Ctrl+Alt+Break broken, and no top bar shown when I move cursor to the top of screen.Something happened. What happened on earth?
• Anonymous
  August 07, 2016
  Also, the buttons icons in my computer are 2x larger than that on your screenshot, and they look blurred.
• Anonymous
  September 01, 2016
  I've been using Hyper-V on Windows 10; guest OS is Ubuntu 14.04 with the default 1152x864 resolution. Solid as a rock, works like a charm, 24x7, happy camper. I launch the VM directly from Hyper-V Manager in basic mode.Earlier today, I installed Windows 10 Anniversary Edition. With that, I got "DPI awareness" ... and now my Ubuntu virtual display [a] does not fit on my host 1920x1080 display, [b] has scroll bars, and [c] is fuzzy because of the DPI scaling.What is the best solution to get my Ubuntu VM display back to where it was yesterday? No, no, I am not backing out of Anniversary Edition.Thanks for the help,Bruce.
  • Anonymous
    September 19, 2016
    The comment has been removed
    • Anonymous
      September 24, 2016
      I have to run Windows 7 32 bit in virtual machine on my laptop with 1920x1080 display. DPI scaling on host was set to 150% and it is perfect. Unfortunately in Windows 1607 virtual machine is unusable. I have exactly the same problems as people with Ubuntu: [a] does not fit on my host 1920×1080 display, [b] has scroll bars, and [c] is fuzzy because of the DPI scaling. I want to run virtual machine with resolution set to 1024x768. Hans has a good suggestion - add an option to disable useless display scaling for certain virtual machines.
• Anonymous
  September 19, 2016
  The comment has been removed
• Anonymous
  October 11, 2016
  Since the new update and the fact that manifest files can't be used anymore, I can't have any usable display on my Hyper-V VMs, the basic session is blurry.Any suggestions ?
  • Anonymous
    October 18, 2016
    Same problem for me... It's all blurry because of DPI scaling. I'm on 14393.321 and my display is 2880x1800 and my scaling is 150 %Can we have a simple option to select the DPI we want ?Thanks
• Anonymous
  October 20, 2016
  It's been a month. Please, please, please tell us how to turn this off! My suse guest os is scaled to approx 125% of normal size. Instead of fitting perfectly, I get scrollbars. I found tips about manifest files, but that doesn't seem to work. I just want this dpi scaling to go away. Everything was working great before the anniversary update.I see several other comments asking about turning it off. Have any of you found a solution? If I find a way, I will comment here. Please do the same.
  • Anonymous
    October 20, 2016
    Terrible workaround: Go to Settings -> System -> Display. Change the scaling to 100%. The good news is that my guest os is displayed properly (as it was before the anniversary update). This is a terrible workaround because everything else in Windows is now too small. I mostly work in my guest os, so this is an improvement, but a way to turn off dpi scaling for my vm (or even vmconnect generally) would be much better. This "feature" has made the anniversary update an enormous step backward. Please post on this page when a fix is available!
    • Anonymous
      November 10, 2016
      The comment has been removed
      • Anonymous
        November 23, 2016
        To be clear, I'm just a user. I have no connection to Microsoft. What you said sounds correct to me. I'm hoping Ben (the owner of this page) will post some good news for us, but it's been a long time. :(I'm usually in vm-connect, so I'm enduring squinting while in Windows, but it would be very nice to be able to adjust the scaling per vm-connect. (Ben, please, please, please!)
• Anonymous
  October 30, 2016
  The comment has been removed
• Anonymous
  December 09, 2016
  The comment has been removed
• Anonymous
  December 14, 2016
  The comment has been removed
• Anonymous
  December 30, 2016
  The comment has been removed
• Anonymous
  January 13, 2017
  brilliant, so now we have a scaled toolbar but the Hyper-V session still presents the desktop in the size of a stamp. The workaround of using a manifest for vmconnect.exe has ceased to work with the Windows 10 Anniversary update (it crashes with a System.UnauthorizedAccessException exception).happy days :(
• Anonymous
  April 17, 2017
  This does not properly work with multiple monitors having different DPI scalingWhen I move VMC window to external monitor it does not pick the DPI scaling change