How do I force windows 8 into 1280x720?

Question

Windows 8 has a minimum resolution of 1024x768, unless you are running it in a VM. As such it doesn't support going into 1280x720 (since 720 < 768). Windows 7 allowed this, but the modes are missing from Windows 8.

My video card and monitor support 1280x720

But it is missing from the slider:

How do I force windows 8 into 1280x720 ?

Solution 1

From Screen Resolution select Advanced Settings and then List All Modes. From here select the desired resolution, OK and Apply.

(Thanks to Bob for this suggestion.)

Solution 2

AFAIK, you cannot set 1280x720 as your resolution, but you can downscale it to 1024x768. To do this, you simply need to search the key Display1_DownScalingSupported in your registry and change every entry which has value 0 to 1.

After rebooting your system you should have some more resolutions to choose from.

Comments

[tvdo]

What's stopping you from selecting the desired mode (in your first screenshot)? That works for me.

[Ramhound]

Why don't you just pick 1280 x 800? You are only talking about a small difference and the resolution requirement only exists because of Windows Store Applications.

[Tamara Wijsman]

Well, you can attempt click on the slider and use the arrow keys on the keyboard instead.

[Jim McKeeth]

@TomWijsman Did you try that Tom? Because on my computer the arrow keys only take you to the tick marks, which doesn't include 1280x720 (as per the screen shots). Curious how you got it to work like that on yours. Do the arrow key give you single pixel granularity?

[Tamara Wijsman]

I can't try (not using Windows), was just a guess, thanks for trying.