Stuck with only 4 rows on start screen for 1920x1200

Hi,

This is my first post so please tell me if I should be posting to a different part of the forums.

My problem is that no matter how hard I try I can't get more than 4 rows on my start page

I have installed Windows 8 on a PC with the following hardware:
nVidia graphics card and latest drivers.
A Dell 27" monitor running at 1920x1200
A secondary DVI to HDMI cable to a 54" Samsung TV (1920x1080) - used for Media Center

I have googled the web in vain and tried many solutions which involve changing registry keys or specifying the MonitorSize. I have also tried the Decor8 app but it limits me to 4 rows.

I have tried unplugging the TV and rebooted but this didn't help.

About the only interesting thing I can find is that if in my display settings I switch to 1080p I only get 3 rows, and if at 1200p I switch to portrait mode I then get more rows - but obviously this isn't particularly useful since my monitor can't pivot.

By comparison I have a VM at work running Windows 8 at 1920x1080 and it happily displays 6 rows - go figure.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

What happens when you switch to 720i or can you.

Hi,

720p doesn't appear in the list of resolutions from the normal display picker, but I was able to select it from the nVidia control panel. The result was the same as before - 4 tile rows. Then out of curiosity I tried a large number if different resolutions and they were all 4 rows. Only 1080p gives me 3, with 4 for 1920x1200.

I have in the past selected that regkey that species the row count and maximum count and after doing a reboot I would still have 4 rows and when I checked the values in regent I would find that the 6 had been changed to a 4.

Very puzzling.

did you try the tiles setting?





here's what my 1080x1920 looks like:



here's what my 1600x1200 desktop looks like:

Hi,
The show extra tiles option only appears when the monitor is switched to portrait mode (1200x1920). Then either way I get 6 rows of titles but there is unused space (I.e. the tiles are a little bit smaller) when Show More Tiles is switched on.

Just did a bit more playing around - disabling the Samsung TV via the drivers does not change anything. Also displaying the start page on the Samsung only gives me 3 rows even though it's 1080p.

It's also worth noting that in landscape mode on either of the two displays the tile size is large enough to use all available screen real estate so this isn't one of those cases where half the start screen is empty.

Finally I had played around with the MonitorSize regkey and it had no had any apparent effect however I just noticed that changing the value does increase/decrease the size of the on-screen keyboard (not that I care too much since this is on a desktop PC), but it does at least prove that the OS is reading that value.

Well, I found a mostly complete answer.

I was doing a lot of googling, specifically searching regarding scaling and DPI for the modern UI start screen.

I found this article:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com...l/thread/fe9e3ef6-c5b6-43d0-ae86-68e34e9751d7

...which mentions the Ease Of Access section of the start screen setting. When I looked I found to my surprise that "Make everything on your screen bigger" was turned on. As soon as it was turned off I got 7 rows.

Well, I never turned that setting on - my recollection was I had 4 rows from the day I first installed Windows 8.

But I am glad that this issue is now fixed. Thanks for the suggestions.

nwoulfe said:

Well, I found a mostly complete answer.

I was doing a lot of googling, specifically searching regarding scaling and DPI for the modern UI start screen.

I found this article:
Issue: Big inch display and lack of DPI-scaling for text in Start Screen (and/or Metro UI)

...which mentions the Ease Of Access section of the start screen setting. When I looked I found to my surprise that "Make everything on your screen bigger" was turned on. As soon as it was turned off I got 7 rows.

Well, I never turned that setting on - my recollection was I had 4 rows from the day I first installed Windows 8.

But I am glad that this issue is now fixed. Thanks for the suggestions.

Click to expand...

Good find, I had a look around as well, all I could find were registry hacks which really only worked at different resolutions. I've got one TV and one monitor on 6 rows and another TV on 4 rows, it's still resolution dependant.