2 min read

Increasing Netbook Screen Size

I’ve got an old Acer Aspire One 521 netbook that I’ve had for ages. One of the downsides of netbooks is that their screen resolution is 1024x600 - which is too low for a lot of programs. In particular, all the interesting buttons of the MFJ-226 control program “T-Series Vector Impedance Analyzer” are below the bottom of the screen.

I found a workaround that appears to work on Windows 7 and higher. I found it here: http://www.tlbhd.com/how-to-get-better-resolution-on-your-standard-10-inch-netbook-2772/

The solution: use regedit to search for all instances of “Display1_DownScalingSupported” and change the value 0 to 1. (According to various things I’ve read, you’ll need to do that for all instances, not just one.) Then reboot. When I did this, I ended up in 1024x768 (which looks strange).

Strange isn’t bad, though. Now I can change resolutions to 1024x768 or 1152x864 if an inconsiderate programmer decides he wants to use more than my screen.