Windows 8.1 guest, UI scaling on retina, and start menu

[AgentT]

I'm having some trouble getting this to work as I would expect...  it seems that my start screen (the tile screen), as well as the charms on the right in Win 8.1 do not scale with everything else when I change the UI scale...  So I end up with a scale of 200% or so, and everything on the desktop is perfectly legible...  but the start tiles and the charms with their UI are still tiny.

The scaling seems to work as I would expect when using Boot Camp directly.

Am I missing something?  I would appreciate any pointers on this issue!

Using Fusion 6.0.2

[se530]

I am in the same boat.

Running Windows 8.1 x64 in Fusion 6.0.2 with VMware Tools installed and in Parallels 9.

In Fusion 6.0.2:

- With 2880x1800 resolution whatever combinations of setting I've tried in Fusion and Win 8.1 only desktop scales well, everything else remains small.

- Things are not small if I opt for lower resolution (such as 1440x900) - but then everything is blurry.

- If I switch off option of Retina Display support in Fusion settings, somehow display is blurry even with full 2880x1800 resolution.

- Tried to update video drivers to Intel v15.33.8.64.3345 (from 27 Nov 13) but got an error saying that minimum hardware specs are not met (thus not able to install them on VM).

In Parallels 9:

- Scaling just works, everywhere, from the box (video drivers in general seem to be much more optimised).

Screenshots:

Win 8.1 on Parallels 9:

Win 8.1 on Fusion 6.0.2:

Kind of disappointed with Fusion 6.0.2 so far. Investing a lot of time into basic stuff trying to make it work. Much more happy with Parallels 9 on Mac in this regard.

Will be really glad to help further Fusion 6 development and be able to use VMware virtualisation for all my needs on both Mac and PC.

System specs:

- MacBook Pro 15 with Iris Pro 5200 (no dedicated Nvidia GPU)

- OS X v10.9

- Fusion 6.0.2 (1398658)

- Parallels 9.0.24172

Long time VMware Workstation user.

[zhus]

In Fusion 6, if you've installed the new tools.

If you are set the scale manually, the 200% setting only takes effect to the desktop.

The MetroUI and charm should be changed there:

1. In the Start page, click the Down Arrow to go to the App list.

2. Open PC Settings in App list.

3. Select PC and devices -> Display.

4. In More Option section, change the selection from "Default" to "Larger".

Then the Metro UI will be more larger.

PS: You can open Settings -> Display, check both the checkboxes "Use full resolution for Retina display" and "Automatically adjust user interface size in Windows".

If the second checkbox checked, a prompt of vmtools will be show to notify a re-login. After that, the scale of Win8.1 Desktop will be changed to 200% automatically, and the Display of Metro UI will be changed into "Large".

[AgentT]

Thanks, however I have already found those settings, and while they do help some, they are not really enough... My screens still are sized exactly as you see in se530's Fusion screenshots above with those settings in place....  The start page is still very small, and the charms still are not the size I would expect them to be...  If I set the OSX side to use Larger Text instead of Best for Retina, then the start menu and charms get sized appropriately in Windows 8.1, but then I'm unable to utilize the native 2880x1800 retina dimensions in windows, because OSX is now telling VMWare it has a smaller display to work with than it actually does.

I'm not entirely sure where the fault lies, but I'm going to guess something is not right with fusion, since both bootcamp and parallels seem to handle this correctly.  Would love to find out I'm incorrect here, however!

[se530]

zhus wrote:

PS: You can open Settings -> Display, check both the checkboxes "Use full resolution for Retina display" and "Automatically adjust user interface size in Windows".

If the second checkbox checked, a prompt of vmtools will be show to notify a re-login. After that, the scale of Win8.1 Desktop will be changed to 200% automatically, and the Display of Metro UI will be changed into "Large".

Hello Zhus.

I did this too, should of mention it in the first post.  Even when size of apps option is set to 'Larger' - things are just too small, barely readable and definitely hurting eyes. Screenshots in my first post are done with the setting 'Larger'.

2880x1800 resolution: text and everything else looking tiny in Fusion 6.0.2 at the max scaling settings.

Same page in Parallels 9:

2880x1800 resolution: max scaling in Parallels 9. Everything is pretty small, but definitely readable and ok for the eyes.

p.s. It is interesting to note that Windows 8.1 in Parallels 9 shows 'Default' option in the menu and 'Smaller', when the same menu in Fusion 6 would show 'Default' and 'Larger'.

[AgentT]

Well I managed to make some progress via a registry edit...  I found that after setting the setting to "Larger", the following value was created in the registry with a string value of 1...  I changed it to 2, and the charms and other metro stuff seems to be sized appropriately, and the start screen is bigger...  however the start screen is still not scaled as I would expect, this does make it even bigger for me.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\LogicalDPIOverride

Still looking for a more complete solution.

[se530]

Thanks AgentT!

Good to see somebody looking for a solution for this.

Right now I am pretty much complete migrating my whole working environment from Win 8.1 PC to Parallels 9 vm.

Will check out this workaround however and do additional testing with Fusion.