Whenever I open and click the various tabs in the shelf properties dialogue (Content, Position, Behavior, Appearance, Effects, Themes), it doesn't seem to move away from the default Content tab when I try to click on another tab. If it moves away at all, there is a horrendous lag and it seems to move when it feels like it. In the Preferences dialogue (CTRL-F11) there is a similar tab setup but it has no lag at all. Any ideas on what to do to fix this?

Does this also happen in Dock Properties dialogs?

Also, could you please post a screenshot of the Shelf Properties dialog, there's something I would like to check.

Thanks,

It doesn't happen in Dock Properties or any other similar tab-type windows. It will open on the Content tab. Then when I try to click on another tab, it will either do nothing or wait for several seconds before moving. Sometimes it just cycles down the row of tabs and stops where it wants. This is the only problem I've had so far with Extreme. Everything else seems to be running fine.

Here is a screenshot:

As I suspected, the problem is that you are running your system in high DPI (also known as 'large fonts'). Normal DPI is 100%, you seem to be running at 150%.

At this DPI setting, Windows 7 turns on something called 'DPI virtualization'. Everything gets automatically bigger, from text to graphics.

DPI virtualization is supposed to be transparent to the application, but, in practice, Microsoft did an incomplete/messy job with it. For instance, under high DPI virtualization, the application is lied to by Windows about current screen resolution, etc..., but if the application is started via the Run key in the Windows Registry (as Winstep - and most other - applications normally are) then DPI virtualization is not properly applied.

When this happens, the application finds itself in a limbo: on one side, all text is bigger than normal, but on the other side, graphics are not automatically re-scaled or correctly positioned. The application still believes everything is normal because Windows is still lying to it.

This is why you are unable to switch tabs in Preferences: because the tab graphics are not being resized and therefore do not appear where they should, you are clicking on the wrong place.

There are other problems which usually do not affect your average application, but which are an issue for applications that deal with the Windows shell: Microsoft, for example, 'forgot' to virtualize the appbars API, which resulted in a mess when Winstep applications tried to reserve screen space for the taskbar, Shelf, or a dock.

The new v11.2 release deals with this issue and works around most of the limitations. One of the things it does when it detects high DPI is on is to auto run from the Startup group instead of the Windows Registry.

So, you have two choices:

1. Upgrade to v11.2, if you haven't already (and, if you have, try exiting Winstep Xtreme and re-starting it - does this make the Shelf Properties dialog appear different from what you see on that screenshot?)

2. Set your system to normal (100%) DPI. To do this, open the Windows Control Panel, open Display, and set the text size (DPI) to 100%.

Note, however, that Microsoft's high DPI virtualization has one glitch/bug that v11.2 hasn't been able to solve (we can't fix Microsoft's bugs, after all): even if everything is scaling properly, if you run an application that declares itself as high DPI aware from Winstep, Windows decides to turn off DPI virtualization to the host application as well (Winstep Xtreme, in this case), thus suddenly putting it in that 'limbo' stated I mentioned above.

Thanks, Jorge. I will just set the DPI to 100%. I think I set it higher for some reason way back when I first installed Win 7. I never noticed a problem until now so I promptly forgot about it.

Thanks for taking the time to look into this for me. I appreciate it.

Just stopped by again to say that I had it set at 125%. I set it back to the default 100% and the problem magically disappeared. By the way I am using 11.2 but I figured setting the font size to default is probably the better way all around. Thanks again.