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Forum Discussion
Dropbox app on Windows 7, and the pop-up system tray appears funky.
I have a little old notebook that's 1024x600 screen and Windows 7, and it's been long since I can't easily see and change some settings in the app interface unless I do some hacks.
I searched some ...
Hello! It was so good and simple a solution I would totally love it... if it worked. 😅
At least my installation of Windows 7 -- and I had it when Windows Update rolled out (so I should have the latest of what it had to the time) doesn't fancy all those DPI settings you mentioned. All it has about DPI in the Compatibility tab is:
Compatibility tab for the Dropbox.exe properties.
The checked option didn't work over a restart of just dropbox or full reboot of the machine. Still the same in both screens.
By the way, I could see the previous version I had while browsing for the executable. It was 175.4.5569. It was no longer syncing, no error messages whatsoever, I simply updated and syncing started working again.
Just in case, that's a Windows 7 6.1, build 7601; 32-bit. Little Intel Atom CPU is, according to autoexec.bat & config.sys file dates, 15 years old in 6 days! Jun 10th, 2009.
There's maybe another way to disable this high-dpi-scaling rule if the Dropbox client obeys some Windows directive before choosing to look so spacey, I'll take a look over the internet, if you have the name of the technology or whatever the client looks up would save me lots of digging in procmon finding it out.
I went to my windows 10 machine and did the steps as pointed. This resulted in my HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers entry for the Dropbox.exe file to contain ~ GDIDPISCALING DPIUNAWARE whereas the Windows 7 setting just sets HIGHDPIAWARE which also suggests the opposite effect I wanted. So I replaced Windows 7's registry, triple-checked for typos and... well, for no avail. So if Dropbox just considered windows 8+ DPI override settings, it looks like it's not enough to just force-set them on Windows 7.
I actually noticed the preferences windows being "slightly broken" in my main machine, now that I look at it closely! If you go to the last tab in Dropbox Preferences, Sync, you'll notice the contents outline is overflowing behind the window's viewport; so much that the scrollbar's bottom arrow is hidden behind it.
Check this screenshot with the window (which is not resizable) in its default width/height, Windows 10, 64-bit same Dropbox 200.4.7134:
Cut content in properties window, windows 10, 2560x1440 screen size, 100%DPI
And then, if I force resize the window to 620 pixels height, I can not only see the bottom of the white round "content box" but also the lower scrollbar.
Preferences dialog expanded to 640pixel height using AHK scripting
Notice, once the window is resized to 620 pixels, a lower round frame is visible in the white area. I believe this was once supposed to be visible. If I close and re-open the properties dialog, dropbox sets it back to 600 pixels, cropping the content.
This particular issue introduced between 175.4 and 200.4 should affect any Windows client probably using 100% DPI Scaling (96DPI). Perhaps this works correctly in high-dpi screens, like 4K displays where users would enable high-dpi desktop settings to be able to see anything in the screen.
The problem is "exagerated" in my Windows 7 install because the viewport has 600-taskbar_height pixels, thus the window size is limited to something around 550 pixels, and some settings (as well as main dropbox display) are cropped out of viewport.
I used this AHK script to manually resize the Properties dialog (it ignores any constraints):
#NoEnv ; Recommended for performance and compatibility with future AutoHotkey releases.
#IfWinActive ahk_class Chrome_WidgetWin_1 ahk_exe Dropbox.exe
^#t::
WinMove, A,, , , , 620Before you ask, I did try the compatibility setting you instructed in my main, windows 10 machine. It made absolutely no difference.
- Megan
Dropbox Staff
Hey avengerx, I definitely appreciate all the added info!
May I ask if you've installed the Windows 7 security update KB3033929 on your computer? It's needed for the Dropbox desktop app to work properly, that's why I'm asking.
I'd also like for us to try one more thing. Would you mind creating a new user profile on your Windows 7 device, and check if the same behavior is noticeable there?
May I ask if you've installed the Windows 7 security update KB3033929 on your computer? It's needed for the Dropbox desktop app to work properly, that's why I'm asking.
That security update sure is installed on my win7 machine. Dropbox is syncing fine since last update, I only get visual issues due to the viewport height being inferior to 768 pixels. I don't really expect it to be fixed for such an edge case, I'm honestly through this issue, I'll just live with that, and use an AHK script if I need to resize the window to see the unreachable settings.
I'd also like for us to try one more thing. Would you mind creating a new user profile on your Windows 7 device, and check if the same behavior is noticeable there?
Hey, I just said I reproduced the issue in win10 with a super-large screen (properties dialogs, that is). Options are not unreachable like in the little win7 one, but they sure are cropped out as I did try to show in the various screenshots in the previous message -- I even shown the "fixed" window by force-increasing the height to 620px. Another user in the win7 machine is not going to change the fact the screen resolution is 1024x600. I don't mean to be rude but I'm really feeling played here.
Maybe we can just close this thread, I'm probably the only one using dropbox in a 1024x600 windows 7 machine to this day and age. The computer is over 15 years old now.
Just in case, the fixes I would expect are:
1. for the main dropbox status window/popup (displayed when we click the tray icon) to be adjustable to Windows Viewports with less than 600 px height (actually around 550 due to the taskbar taken space)2. for the properties window to be properly scrollable, i.e. its internal "white content area" to fit the actual window height instead of being a fixed height. AHK Inspector suggests that's a Google Chrome browser shell, so I suppose that's HTML/javascript therein, and it is possible, even in a portable way, to implement such behavior with viewport, load events, or window change ones.
I understand a single person is enough wind to require a fix in the UI. Perhaps one day more people show up complaining about this issue or similar ones, or even a new UI layout technology update fixes that for good; but until then it's probably not worth the trouble. I rarely use that win7 computer.
