Winforms program is larger through Remote Desktop on Windows 2012 server compared to Windows 2003 server

Question

Recently, we have switched our server that handles Remote Desktop connections from 2003 to 2012. When I run the same winforms program on each server, the one on 2012 appears to be larger. My workstation is Windows 10 and I put the resolution down to 1280 x 768 so I can see the screen at the top and the bottom on each RDP session on each server. On the 2003 server, the screen fits the desktop. On the 2012 server, the screen goes below the desktop and you can't see the bottom. It appears the controls such as the text boxes are just a little larger which is forcing the whole program to be larger.

I did check the "Change the size of text, apps, and other itmes" on Windows 10 desktop and it's set to 100% (Recommended). This doesn't seem to be the problem.

Does anyone have any ideas why the behavior would change between the two servers?

Answer 1

This is probably because 2012 does DPI-scaling (so the remote session tries to adjust the DPI to the same as it is on the client session): https://superuser.com/questions/830234/remote-desktop-into-windows-8-1-pc-with-high-dpi-scaling (also, I guess that you mean 2012R2 because DPI scaling only appears in RDP 8.1 which corresponds to 2012R2).

Answer 2

I have the same issue and I'm just blown away at the amount of money my organization has spent on RDS 2012 and it's been nothing but a complete nightmare. We have various types of Surfaces, desktops and monitors all of which require each user to have the ability to change the resolution and display settings on the actual terminal services end. We've tried everything on both the client and server side to correct this but displays are either too large for some users and too small for other users. Why doesn't Microsoft come out with a patch like there was for server 2008???? I understand the DPI scaling technology, and I will tell you it's horrible when you have multiple versions of the Microsoft Surface and other brand desktops (and yes we have installed the desktop experience on the server end).

Here's what I strongly recommend:

Abandon the whole terminal server 2012 configuration and go with individual virtual desktops. After this, install the display and resolution patch for each desktop which lets each user configure their own resolution and display settings. Not only will your users thank you but you'll thank yourself!!

Answer 3

We had this issue for about a week and I restarted our Windows Server 2012 on remote desktop and DPI is back to normal! :) I guess this must be some automatic Windows update that fixed this.