Notification area is broken under 110% scaling. Any way to fix it?

AndreyT · 25 Oct 2015

To better suit my monitor, I want to run my Windows 10 in 110% scaling mode, just like I did with Windows 7. When I adjust scaling to 110% everything does indeed look right (i.e. very similar to Windows 7).

However, there's an obvious issue with notification area icons: if there are more than one icon present in the notification area, one of the icons always "disappears". More precisely, the rightmost icon becomes invisible: Windows apparently simply thinks that it does not fit into the constraints of the notification area and decides not to draw it.

Here's some pictures of what happens in 110% scaling mode. This is the original configuration, when all icons are residing in the the pop-up "drawer" and only the Volume Control icon is present in the notification area. Everything looks fine

Notification area is broken under 110% scaling. Any way to fix it?-1.png

Now let's say I drag Skype icon from the popup drawer down into the notification area and drop it to the left of the Volume Control icon

Notification area is broken under 110% scaling. Any way to fix it?-2.png

As can be seen in the above picture, the Volume Control icon suddenly disappears. Technically it is there, but Windows fails to display it since it assumes (apparently) that the icon "does not fit" into the allotted space.

Now, If I return Skype back into the drawer everything will get back to normal - the Volume Control icon will reappear. If after that I, again, drag Skype icon from the popup drawer into the notification area, but this time drop it to the right of the Volume Control icon, the Skype icon will disappear

Notification area is broken under 110% scaling. Any way to fix it?-3.png

So, the question I have is: is there any workaround for this problem? Is it somehow possible to manually increase the size (the width) of the notification area to make it display all icons?

Night Hawk · 25 Oct 2015

I have two screens here first showing things at the default 100% scaling and then the change to 125% without any problem once you log out of the user account you are in be it the admin or another and whether or not signed into an MS account or the local admin in working order. First at the 100% default.

Notification area is broken under 110% scaling. Any way to fix it?-scalability-custom-scaling-sizes-100.jpg

Then another grabbed with a fast change to the 125% setting.

Notification area is broken under 110% scaling. Any way to fix it?-scalability-custom-scaling-sizes-125.jpg

And then went up and unlocked the Task bar to try and successfully rearranging the larger number of items here without any of them disappearing at all. When moving things around make sure you don't end up right clicking on any of them and hitting the exit option in the process which will then make them disappear and why you may have to manually start them up again if they are not set to start automatically with Windows.

I didn't find any 110% option only the 125%, 150%, 175%, etc. in that order when going to use the Custom Scaling options. Here's a look at the first arrangement of icons in the System Tray Notification area.

Notification area is broken under 110% scaling. Any way to fix it?-system-tray-icons-notification-area-view-1.jpg

Now I will take a moment to move things around and end up with ...

Notification area is broken under 110% scaling. Any way to fix it?-system-tray-icons-notification-area-view-2.jpg

Which tends to suggest you might be seeing a registry issue of some type. You may want to right click on the Task bar to bring up the Taskbar and Start properties screen to see which items are set to be hidden to try and refresh things by unhiding and then hiding them again.

AndreyT · 25 Oct 2015

Night Hawk said:

I have two screens here first showing things at the default 100% scaling and then the change to 125% without any problem

The problem is apparently caused by glitchy calculations for "irregular" scaling values' like 110%. It is not surprising that 125% scaling works fine. I have 200% scaling on my ThinkPad and it also woks fine.

But for my desktop %125 is too much. I need %110, just like I had in Windows 7.

Night Hawk said:

And then went up and unlocked the Task bar to try and successfully rearranging the larger number of items here without any of them disappearing at all. When moving things around make sure you don't end up right clicking on any of them and hitting the exit option...

You have a lot of custom toolbars, which is why locking/unlocking the taskbar make a difference for you. In the default setup (no extra toolbars) locking/unlocking does nothing in Windows 10. I wish I could unlock the bar and manually increase the size of notification area a little bit, but alas it is not possible.

And, of course, no, I'm not hitting any "exit options", as is clearly demonstrated by the pictures I posted. The invisible notification icon can be made to reappear by rearranging other icons.

Night Hawk said:

I didn't find any 110% option only the 125%, 150%, 175%, etc. in that order when going to use the Custom Scaling options.

You didn't see them because they are not there. The scaling value is not a fixed list, as you seem to suggest. The scaling value is freely specifiable by the user. You are supposed to type it in. You can type in any value: 123%, %99 or 136% if you so desire. The "125%, 150%, 175%" list that you see there is just a suggestion.

Night Hawk said:

You may want to right click on the Task bar to bring up the Taskbar and Start properties screen to see which items are set to be hidden to try and refresh things by unhiding and then hiding them again.

No, the icon that disappears is not listed as "hidden" there. As I said above, it is an obvious GUI-level drawing bug.

AndreyT · 25 Oct 2015

AndreyT said:

The problem is apparently caused by glitchy calculations for "irregular" scaling values' like 110%. It is not surprising that 125% scaling works fine. I have 200% scaling on my ThinkPad and it also woks fine.

And eureka! This is actually a way to fix it.

The bug, once again, is apparently caused by "glitchy" integer calculations for %110 scaling value. Most likely the icon just goes out of the allotted notification area by 1 pixel, and that makes Windows to fail to display it entirely.

So, all one needs is to try adjacent scaling values, like 109% or %111 to see whether it prevents the glitch. And indeed, setting scaling value to %109 fixed the problem in my case. (It might reappear somewhere else later, since %109 is also quite an irregular value, but so far so good.)

Night Hawk · 25 Oct 2015

Well this is why there are preset values when you first arrive at the Scaling options screen. As you can see from the second screen posted the 125% is a bit too cramped for the number of items pinned here as well as having the additional Quick Launch type tool bars in use.. Yet the View change is possible as seen with the first of those at the Start, Search, Task View end there.

As for resizing the icons you have in the System Tray you would likely need some programming experience to upset the defaults seen in Windows as well as a couple of new entries in the System Registry itself to enable that type of option. Originally that was mainly for automatic startups and popup balloon type notifications when first seen with 7. XP and Vista were stuck with the limits of the original Quick Launch area you adjusted by unlocking the older type of task bar. You were limited to how many could be added.

Now as far as typing in any custom scale size you may want to look again at why you will only find presets instead!

Notification area is broken under 110% scaling. Any way to fix it?-scaling-custom-options.jpg

No area to type anything at all. What you see is the dropdown list of choices being what you get. Any scripting for custom sizing things has to be done elsewhere.

lopedoggie · 25 Oct 2015

Isn't this a taskbar start menu properties issue.

Night Hawk · 25 Oct 2015

The Taskbar and Start menu properties only allow you to pick and choose which system icons will be seen, turned on or off. There's no options found for resizing icons and the System Tray area itself in any version going back to 7. Those options are found in the Start>Settings>System>Notifications and actions section.

AndreyT · 25 Oct 2015

Night Hawk said:

As for resizing the icons you have in the System Tray you would likely need some programming experience to upset the defaults seen in Windows as well as a couple of new entries in the System Registry itself to enable that type of option.

I'm not sure why you are mentioning about "resizing the icons in the System Tray". Nobody here is trying to resize the icons.

The issue is that Windows is supposed to correctly show all "visible" icons in the system tray (up to a certain limit). The tray is supposed to expand automatically. Icons are not supposed to disappear without a trace.

Night Hawk said:

Now as far as typing in any custom scale size you may want to look again at why you will only find presets instead!
...
No area to type anything at all. What you see is the dropdown list of choices being what you get. Any scripting for custom sizing things has to be done elsewhere.

Er... I'm not sure what's the issue here, but the area for typing is there right in front of you in your own picture (!). That field after the words "...normal size:" is editable. It is manually editable. You can type anything you want into that field. Try it. Report back to the forum.

It is how it has always been. These numbers you see in the drop down list are there just for your convenience. You don't have to use them. Instead, you can just type in '333', for %333 scaling, if you so desire.

And again, as I said above, the workaround is to "wiggle" the scaling value a little to find the one that doesn't suffer from these issues. %110 is broken. But %109 looks the same and works fine (in this regard at least).

Night Hawk · 26 Oct 2015

AndreyT said:

I'm not sure why you are mentioning about "resizing the icons in the System Tray". Nobody here is trying to resize the icons.

That's what I was trying to explain to lopedoggie.

AndreyT said:

Er... I'm not sure what's the issue here, but the area for typing is there right in front of you in your own picture (!). That field after the words "...normal size:" is editable. It is manually editable. You can type anything you want into that field. Try it. Report back to the forum.

It is how it has always been. These numbers you see in the drop down list are there just for your convenience. You don't have to use them. Instead, you can just type in '333', for %333 scaling, if you so desire.

And again, as I said above, the workaround is to "wiggle" the scaling value a little to find the one that doesn't suffer from these issues. %110 is broken. But %109 looks the same and works fine (in this regard at least).

When trying to click in the text area that was an automatic no go indicating you couldn't simply enter in any figure you wanted but are limited to what is already in the dropdown options list seen there. If you looked a bit closer you would have noticed that the 100% was already highlighted in light blue showing it was fixed text you couldn't use the backspace key on.

AndreyT · 26 Oct 2015

Night Hawk said:

When trying to click in the text area that was an automatic no go indicating you couldn't simply enter in any figure you wanted but are limited to what is already in the dropdown options list seen there. If you looked a bit closer you would have noticed that the 100% was already highlighted in light blue showing it was fixed text you couldn't use the backspace key on.

I don't know why you keep repeating this instead of just trying and seeing for yourself. Where you got the idea that "100% highlighted in light blue" somehow means that it is "fixed text" is beyond me.

Let me repeat it again:

No, you are not limited to what is in the drop down list.

Yes, you can manually enter any scaling value into that field (within certain reasonable limits, of course)

Additionally, as described here you can simply drag the ruler image left or right to arrive at any intermediate scaling value in that box.