Windows Forms Graphic Issue on Windows 10 OS

Question

When I run any Windows Forms application in Windows 10, the graphics inside the window appear to be distorted:

At design time this does not happen:

Has anyone ever experienced this?

(Please,open the images to see better.)

Answer 1

To solve the problem, you can make your application DPI-Aware using either of these options:

• Using Application Manifest File
• Using SetProcessDPIAware

Using Application Manifest File

To make the application DPI-Aware, you can add an Application Manifest File to your project. Then in the app.manifest file, uncomment the part that is related to DPI-Awareness:

<application xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v3">
 <windowsSettings>
   <dpiAware xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/SMI/2005/WindowsSettings">true</dpiAware>
 </windowsSettings>
</application>

Then in your app.config file, add EnableWindowsFormsHighDpiAutoResizing setting its value to true:

<appSettings>
  <add key="EnableWindowsFormsHighDpiAutoResizing" value="true" />
</appSettings>

For more information take a look at High DPI MSDN page.

Using SetProcessDPIAware

You can use SetProcessDPIAware() method before showing your main form to set your application dpi aware and prevent windows from scaling the application. Also you should check the windows version to be greater than or equals to vista:

static class Program
{
    [DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
    static extern bool SetProcessDPIAware();

    /// <summary>
    /// The main entry point for the application.
    /// </summary>
    [STAThread]
    static void Main()
    {
        if (Environment.OSVersion.Version.Major >= 6)
            SetProcessDPIAware();

        Application.EnableVisualStyles();
        Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(true);
        Application.Run(new Form1());
    }
}

Note

While I previously used the SetProcessDPIAware method to solve the problem, but read the note before use:

SetProcessDPIAware is subject to a possible race condition if a DLL caches dpi settings during initialization. For this reason, it is recommended that dpi-aware be set through the application (.exe) manifest rather than by calling SetProcessDPIAware.

SetProcessDPIAware is available for use only in the operating systems specified in the Requirements section. This method may have unexpected behavior in subsequent versions of the operating system. Use SetProcessDpiAwareness instead.

DLLs should accept the dpi setting of the host process rather than call SetProcessDPIAware themselves. To be set properly, dpiAware should be specified as part of the application (.exe) manifest.