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[SiGuy]

I've finally managed to track-down an MC display bug that exists in MC13 and all versions of MC14 under XP, Vista, and Win7.  The symptom is that scrolling with a scroll wheel in the Playing Now track list and the tree view window is unpredictable.  Clicking in the list area & using the scroll wheel sometimes would result in scrolling, and most times not.  Moving the pointer out of the list area, say into the Playing Now visualization area, could allow scrolling in the list window.

MC13 & 14 are the only programs that I ever found with this behavior.  (I checked windows native apps, Firefox, IE, office applications, etc.)  I also used native windows and vendor specific mouse drivers (I have only experimented with a variety of Logitech rodents, so I cannot say that other vendors showed this problem.)

I have MC installed on multiple PC's.  This problem ONLY occurred on PC's attached to large-screen TV's (NTSC and HD).  That was a symptom I overlooked in my earlier posts & debugging of this...

The problem comes from using windows display configuration font sizing (Win7:  Control Panel\Appearance and Personalization\Display.)  I used 150% or Custom font sizing only on my systems attached to TV.  My normal desktop systems, which never showed this scrolling target problem , were always normal/100% font sizing.) 

Recently, I started having Win7/Aero display problems after resuming from suspend.  So I uninstalled my vendor video drivers & returned my display setup to default settings, including normal/100% font sizing.  The MC scrolling problems which had been very easy to reproduce were gone.  I changed fonts back to 150%, and the scrolling problems returned.

Since this appears to be an MC specific issue and is version independent, I've posted this bug here.  I have seen other users report similar symptoms over the years, and I have posts on this topic as well.  This isn't an urgent issue, and it seems that most users don't control font sizes this way.  Still, it's a standard windows feature and is rather difficult to track down.

[Matt]

Thanks for the detailed report.

It lead to quite a learning experience.  By default, when you increase the DPI, Vista and Windows 7 use a DPI virtualization system that draws the program on a small buffer and stretches it at display time to be larger.  But Microsoft acknowledges "severe compatibility issues", and there are plenty.  For example, asking "what window is under this point" or "where is this window" returns results totally out of step with the display.  This is why the mouse wheel didn't work.

The good news is that you can just mark your application as DPI aware and Windows won't make this mess.

Media Center already allows independent font size selection, so this works well for us.  If the font gets too large, there are a few issues, but overall support is good.

In a coming build:
Changed: Media Center is marked as DPI aware to prevent the buggy Windows Vista / Windows 7 DPI virtualization from running (remember you can set font sizes for Media Center in Options > Tree & View).
Changed: User font size selections are stored in a DPI-dependent way to provide better scaling as a user changes DPI (user font selection will need to be reset).

In the meantime, you can configure Windows not to use DPI virtualization in the 'Compatibility' tab for Media Center's shortcut.

Thanks again.

[HiFiTubes]

I'm curious if you were using XP mode or not. I found that NOT using XP mode with higher DPI resulted in a really bad result in Media Center.

BTW - You don't use RiverMote do you?

[SiGuy]

I'm not using "XP Mode" in Win7, but I did see this exact same problem in native XP and Vista (both 32-bit).  I wasn't using RiverMote, just native Windows and Logitech drivers specific to my keyboard & mouse.

Pointing & left-clicking with the mouse to scroll via scroll bars always worked as expected.  Only using the scroll wheel or page up/down keys failed to scroll as expected.

Since I've returned to non-scaled fonts in Win7, scrolling in MC has behaved normally.

But, now the MC menus (File, Edit, View, Toos, Help) font is so small that they're not readable.  I have increased my font size via MC Tools/Options/Tree and View/Font Size so that I can see text in MC windows, but the system menu title fonts do not scale with this options setting.  (That seems like a bug to me.)

[Matt]

But, now the MC menus (File, Edit, View, Toos, Help) font is so small that they're not readable.  I have increased my font size via MC Tools/Options/Tree and View/Font Size so that I can see text in MC windows, but the system menu title fonts do not scale with this options setting.  (That seems like a bug to me.)

The top player area uses fixed size art, so the font is scaled to fit instead of scaled with the user selection.

This is something we'd like to improve, but due to possible skin compatibility issues, it probably won't happen until Media Center 15.

[Matt]

The top player area uses fixed size art, so the font is scaled to fit instead of scaled with the user selection.

This is something we'd like to improve, but due to possible skin compatibility issues, it probably won't happen until Media Center 15.

Build 14.0.110 and later (available in about a week) can scale the top player area with supported skins.

To begin with, only Noire will support scaling.  Other skins will be updated as time allows.