If you’ve noticed that the font size in the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 Solution Demo Package V1.0 looks wrong the I hope the information in this post will be of use.
The issue appears immediately when I open the AX client:
Odd font sizes in R3 client
You can see in the screenshot above that the font in the Navigation pane and on the Help drop-down menu is much larger than the font in the Content pane. After some investigation, I find that there is more than one factor in play.
The font size in the AX 2012 client can be altered using the DPI scaling functionality in Windows, but I find that the AX 2012 R3 client is not properly honouring this setting. In the screen shot above the font that AX should be using is the larger font. The font in the Content pane is incorrectly a smaller font. I find the same problem in AX 2012 R3 systems which have been built using the installer i.e. its not a problem limited to the R3 Solution Demo Package. I also find that the latest R3 kernel (6.3.164.3323) does not fix it. The problem causes some other noticeable graphics glitches, for example when resizing columns on a List Page:
Graphics glitch when resizing columns on a List Page
In the screenshot above, resizing the ‘Phone’ column on the All Suppliers list page produces odd results.
Whilst I wait for a fix from Microsoft, I find that a workaround is available. It involves setting DPI scaling so that the font size is small, which is how I personally would like AX to appear in any case. How you go about doing that is probably not quite so straight forward….
If you’re running the R3 client on your local PC, you can just head to Control Panel -> All Control Panel Items -> Display and change the slider all the way to the left:
Display settings in Windows 8.1
Unfortunately, if your R3 client is in the R3 Solution Demo Package, or just installed on a server to which you have only remote access, you may find that this setting cannot be changed:
Display settings can’t be changed from a remote session
The cause of this depends on how you connect to the remote computer. If you’re using the Hyper-V Virtual Machine Connection, new functionality called ‘Enhanced session mode‘ is responsible.
If you’re using the Remote Desktop Connection (mstsc.exe), changes in Windows 8.1 are responsible.
If you’re using Virtual Machine Connection, you can opt to turn Enhanced session mode off. Otherwise, you’re going to have to set DPI scaling on your local PC to ‘Smallest':
All fonts are now the same size
Whilst this improves the appearance of AX, it reduces my local PC to a headache inducing mess and is not a long term solution. However, I at least feel better knowing the reasons and that a workaround is available when I need it.
I have logged the issue with Microsoft support, and will update this post when I have more information details of their response can be found here.
