Fix Resolution in Wine / PlayOnLinux Apps - Tiny Icons

Hi guys, I have an old windows program I am running on PlayOnLinux. Because I have such a high res laptop, I'm having display issues.

I ran winecfg and changed the dpi which did a great job of making the text readable. But I cannot get the icons to budge. They're so tiny I have to press my nose to the screen just to see them. I've tried turning on fractional scaling but it does nothing, and I already run my screen display scale at 200%.

Does anyone have a fix to force Wine / PlayOnLinux to display at a higher res?

This link says to do the following (I do not know if this will work or is still applicable today):


In addition to what LaTechneuse stated, you also need to manually change the desktop metrics using regedit.exe, otherwise the most of the system menus and labels will still remain small.

The values you need to change are located in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\Window Metrics:

Replace all the REG_SZ values, except for IconTitleWrap (it should be 1), to value2 (e.g. change -135 to -270, 1 to 2, 32 to 64, etc.)
Change the very first byte in all of the REG_BINARY values (CaptionFont, MenuFont, etc.) to byte
2 (e.g. change 04 to 08, etc.). Remember that the values are hexadecimal.

When editing the REG_BINARY values, be careful not to shift any bytes accidentally. Place your cursor after the value you need to replace, then press Backspace once, then enter the new value.

Ah, yes. I actually have already done the 1st fix in that link. Changing the dpi in winecfg only changes text, not the icon size.

The 2nd fix isn't possible with this program because it doesn't actually install. I know this sounds weird, but the .exe file just runs from inside a folder. So there's no way to edit the regedit

Was hoping there was someway to force wine to run on the Gnome/system display or theme.

I do not use Wine, anymore. So I am woefully unqualified to be much help. Perhaps someone else knows some ideas to try.

I run some .exe apps straight from Linux without the need for Wine at all. DiskDigger or CreeperWorld (Knucklecracker game) come to mind.
Some .exe apps need only Mono to run as is on Linux.

In wine you can change the display setting to increase the dpi, so everything is readable.

Before:

After:

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Well I really appreciate the help regardless. I was hoping to skip Wine, but this .exe won't run without it, dang it.

Hopefully someone else will stop by with a suggestion.

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Did you try what i posted ?

Hi @Michel , sorry. Yes, like I said in my original post, I've already changed the dpi setting there. This only changes the font size, but doesn't increase the icon size.

Do you know of any other possible fixes?

Maybe try to lower the resolution 640x480 ? and use it on virtual desktop to see if that changed it.

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That's a good suggestion. I tried both. The low res 640x480 with the virtual desktop enabled but it just opens it in a tiny little window on my screen. The icons were still tiny. Then tried it at my full screen resolution which didn't change anything either except the window size.

I'm at a loss. :grimacing:

The only other option i think of is your desktop resolution

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If Fractional Scaling is being used anywhere, I can see how it may affect other apps.

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