Apps large on screen, not related to scaling or resolution

Hi ScottFaver,

Welcome to the Windows Community.

I'm sorry to hear that you're having problems with the item icons and fonts getting bigger, but since you haven't provided us with any detailed information, we can't accurately determine what's going on, and we hope that you'll be able to provide us with screenshots of some of the abnormalities that are occurring with the icons and other items on your screen.

In your description, even if you have adjusted the resolution, the problem still exists, we can only roughly deduce that this may be the system is running some third-party software (such as software that can set the theme and background), the impact on your system's scaling and layout settings, please refer to the following steps to adjust:

Clean boot:

I recommend trying a clean boot which starts Windows with a minimal set of drivers and startup programs. It can be used to determine whether a background It can be used to determine whether a background service or programme is interfering or causing a problem.

These steps of "clean boot" might look complicated at first glance. However, to avoid any trouble for you, please follow them in order and step-by-step.

Check to see if the same problem occurs in a clean boot, and if it doesn't occur in a clean boot, and you have installed software that modifies themes or the like, uninstall all the software in question.

If the current problem of huge icons and text is affecting your normal use, you can try the following steps to change your zoom and layout settings to make it normal:

1 Press the Windows key and I at the same time to open Settings.

2 Search for Dispaly in the Settings search box.

3 Find the Scale column, set the value inside, change it to the appropriate size (usually 100%) .

I hope the above can help you, if you have other questions please contact me.

Best Regards,

Zev - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Zev, thank you for the thoughtful reply. I greatly appreciate it. I have in fact tried your suggestions with no success. You asked for some screenshots and I'm happy to share. [Smile]

1. is my system display

2. Resolution and Scale settings. There are no smaller options available than those shown.

3. Comparison view of what my other machines look like and what the other one looks like.

NOTE: I have tried different monitors with a clean boot with no change

Thank you,

Scott

Hi ScottFaver,

Welcome to Microsoft Community. I'm sorry to hear that your screen (both icons and fonts) is getting too big, even though you tried a clean boot, the results are frustrating, firstly, you can try the following to change the word size:

1 Press the Windows key and the I key to open Settings

2 Find Accessibility, find the Text size option and click on it to enter the text size settings

3 Try sliding the slider to see if the text size has changed.

If the above doesn't help, you can try creating a new account to see if the problem still exists.

Please create a new test account, and switch to the newly created account to see if icon and text size is normal. This troubleshooting step can help isolate This troubleshooting step can help isolate the problem due to an invalid profile configuration.

Create a local user or administrator account in Windows - Microsoft Support

Thank you for your understanding and support, please continue to contact me if you have any further questions.

Best Regards,

Zev - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Zev,

Thank you for your patience with my slow response time. I like the way you think. Creating a new test profile was a great idea. It didn't solve the issue. But testing is what troubleshooting is all about.

Per your suggestion. I created a new profile. Logged in to that profile. It still had the LARGE Icons and Fonts on all the programs. Even when I wasn't logged in to my Microsoft accounts.

I then booted the machine from the new profile and logged in to the new profile and everything was still LARGE.

I'm open to your next suggestion. :-)

Dear ScottFaver.

Thank you for your feedback on this issue. I appreciate your willingness to try the troubleshooting options we have provided, and I'm sorry to learn that your issue with both icons and text becoming large in both clean start and new local accounts still exists, I understand how frustrating this situation can be.

Here I would like to confirm with you, before your icons and text became abnormal, did you use some 3-party software that modifies themes or fonts? There are some 3-party software that will most likely be able to modify the theme by modifying the system's configuration file. Therefore, in this case, even in clean boot and new account, the problem of display abnormality still occurs because the system's configuration file has been modified. (Ignore this confirmation if you have not used the software in question.)

From your previous tests, it is likely that your system's configuration file regarding the display has been modified, or some error has occurred. Currently, you can only try to restore the configuration file by resetting your system, so as to restore the normal display.

Please refer to the following to perform an override installation:

Disclaimer: At this point, we have exhausted all troubleshooting and I recommend that we try to perform a clean install to get your computer back into a Please ensure that you backup any important data, including Documents, Pictures, Videos, and more. After that, you can find instructions on how to install Windows 10/11 in the following article by MVP Andre: How to: Perform a Custom Installation of Windows 11 and Windows 10 - Microsoft Community

I hope the above information can help you. Thank you for your understanding and support.

Best Regards,

Zev - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Zev,

Thanks for working with me. No, I'm not using any 3rd party software that modifies themes \ fonts.

Restore Point by the way did not offer a solution. So, a clean install may be the best bet. I'll let you know how it turns out. Thank you again.

Hi Scott.

Thanks for your feedback on this issue. I'm sorry to hear that you haven't used any software to change the theme or anything like that, but that the icons and fonts are still getting too big, even though you've gone through a restore point that hasn't helped you, I understand that this is frustrating, but your efforts are commendable.

If you are trying to solve this problem by reinstalling your system, then we suggest that you try a system override first, which is an operation that has less impact on the data files in your computer.

Disclaimer: At this point, we have exhausted all troubleshooting and I recommend that we try to perform a clean install to get your computer back into a Please ensure that you backup any important data, including Documents, Pictures, Videos, and more. After that, you can find instructions on how to install Windows 10/11 in the following article by MVP Andre: How to: Perform a Custom Installation of Windows 11 and Windows 10 - Microsoft Community

I hope the above helps, if you have any other questions, please contact me again. Thank you for your understanding and support and I look forward to your good news!

Best Regards,

Zev Li - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Zev, thank you for your continued support and suggestions. Yesterday I "reset" the computer, which saved some of my data, removed most programs, and reinstalled Windows 11. This resolved the LARGE font issue. [Smile]

I'm now in the process of reinstalling my programs, Windows Office... Despite the extra work, the nice part is everything is fresh and updated. [Smile]

Hi Scott.

Thanks for your continued interest and feedback on this issue. I also appreciate your efforts and attempts to resolve this issue. I'm glad to learn that you resolved the issue by resetting your computer. It is indeed very likely that resetting your computer will cause you to lose some of your data, so it is recommended that you back up your important data before you proceed with the reset.

Meanwhile, here's hoping that you won't encounter another time when you need to reset your computer to solve a problem. When you inevitably need to reset your computer, we suggest you, before you proceed to the steps of reset, you can first try to fix it by overwriting the installation, overwriting the installation is an operation that has less impact on the data in your computer, and minimise the impact on the data in your computer while restoring your computer.

Thank you for your understanding and support, if you have any other questions, please continue to contact me.

Best Regards,

Zev Li - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist