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3.11. Display Problems with Multiple Monitors

Applies to:
All current products, except Palisade Custom Runtime

I've got more than one monitor. In @RISK (Evolver, PrecisionTree, ...), I see problems like these:

Some windows show too large or too small.
Icons in the Palisade ribbon are blurry compared to native Excel ribbon tabs.
I move a window to a different monitor and it disappears.
Callouts point to the wrong place when Browse Results and Excel are on different monitors.
Windows resize themselves, or position themselves partly off the screen, or disappear completely.

There can be problems with multiple monitors when they have different DPI settings. This has to do with some Windows and Excel updates in the spring of 2018. It does not occur with Windows 7, 8, or 8.1, which don't support mixed DPI settings. It may or may not occur in Windows 10, depending on which updates are installed.

Palisade supports per-system DPI settings, but not per-monitor settings. What does this mean?

Per-monitor means that Excel honors different DPI settings on different monitors. You are in this mode when Excel shows Display Settings toward the right of the status bar, and when you click on it "Optimize for best appearance" is selected. (The same setting is also in File » Options » General. Under User Interface Options, look for When using multiple displays.)

Per-system means that Windows and Excel ignore any DPI settings on secondary monitors that differ from the DPI setting on your primary monitor. You are in this mode when Display Settings doesn't appear in the status line, or it does appear but when you click on it "Optimize for compatibility' is selected.

Problems can occur in per-monitor mode when different monitors have different DPI settings; if you have all monitors set to the same DPI then it doesn't matter whether you're in per-system or per-monitor mode. Some kinds of problems occur when Excel is in a secondary monitor but a window of @RISK is in your primary monitor, but not the other way around.

If you have display problems, some or all of the following may be necessary to solve them:

Look in Excel's status line. If Display Settings appears, click it and change to "Optimize for compatibility", then close and restart Excel as the window suggests. If Display Settings doesn't appear, then you are already in per-system mode.
Keep Excel in your primary monitor, whether you have @RISK windows in your primary monitor or a secondary monitor.
Upgrade to @RISK 7.6.

Can Palisade Technical Support help with problems in multiple-monitor setups?

When Display Settings exists and is set to "Optimize for best appearance", also known as per-monitor mode, Palisade Technical Support is unable to help with display problems in our software releases 7.x and older. Try switching to per-system mode, "Optimize for compatibility".

If you have display problems when Excel is in per-system mode (Display Settings is set to "Optimize for compatibility", or Display Settings is not shown in Excel), Palisade Technical Support will help you resolve them, assuming you have a current maintenance contract. Please include your serial number in your trouble report, or have it ready when you call. If you have an older version of our software, be prepared to upgrade to 7.6 to solve the display problems.

Last edited: 2018-10-09

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