Display resolution in Windows 11: how low can it go?

Try3 · Mar 27, 2024

The dolphins look familiar. Was that an earlier Win7 background? Or did you find it online somewhere?

Denis

spapakons · Mar 27, 2024

I don't remember where I found it from, it is called "jumping dolphins" or similar.

Found it: Photo of three dolphins jumping on sea HD wallpaper | Wallpaper Flare

Try3 · Mar 27, 2024

I just found it as well.
1600x1200

dolphin, Sea, Jumping, Water Wallpapers HD / Desktop and Mobile Backgrounds

Download hd wallpapers of 97437-dolphin, Sea, Jumping, Water. Free download High Quality and Widescreen Resolutions Desktop Background Images.

wallup.net

I'll copy the bigger one, the wallup.net one.

Thanks,
Denis

spapakons · Mar 27, 2024

That's the size I have it and from the link I posted. Your link has the same image flipped horizontally. I think there was an old site with wallpapers I took it from. I have even resized it to 320x240 to put it at an old Pocket PC running Windows Mobile 6!

PS: Windows 3.0 could run in old graphics cards such as CGA 320x200 4 colors, EGA 320x200 16 colors and even Hercules 720x360 B/W. But I think it would be rather difficult to run Windows 11 in that low resolution... just kidding

Simulation of what it would be like to run Windows 11 in 320x200 16 colors (EGA graphics with error diffusion dithering), enlarged to 640x400 for convenience:

320x200 EGA 16 colors Windows 11 start menu.jpg

Pretty awful, no thanks! I stick to my 1440x900 16M colors.

If you are curious, this is how Windows 11 would look in standard VGA 640x480 16 colors (if there was no Microsoft Basic Display Adapter WDDM driver) :

640x480 VGA 16 colors Windows 11 start menu.jpg

Plain awful!

Maybe dithering could help...

640x480 VGA 16 colors dithered Windows 11 start menu.jpg

Still not enough to convince me. I stick with higher resolutions and 16M colors.

jimbo45 · Mar 27, 2024

spapakons said:
That's the size I have it and from the link I posted. Your link has the same image flipped horizontally. I think there was an old site with wallpapers I took it from. I have even resized it to 320x240 to put it at an old Pocket PC running Windows Mobile 6!

PS: Windows 3.0 could run in old graphics cards such as CGA 320x200 4 colors, EGA 320x200 16 colors and even Hercules 720x360 B/W. But I think it would be rather difficult to run Windows 11 in that low resolution... just kidding

Simulation of what it would be like to run Windows 11 in 320x200 16 colors (EGA graphics with error diffusion dithering), enlarged to 640x400 for convenience:

View attachment 91659
Pretty awful, no thanks! I stick to my 1440x900 16M colors.

If you are curious, this is how Windows 11 would look in standard VGA 640x480 16 colors (if there was no Microsoft Basic Display Adapter WDDM driver) :
View attachment 91660
Plain awful!

Maybe dithering could help...
View attachment 91661
Still not enough to convince me. I stick with higher resolutions and 16M colors.

I've a NAS box with both the HDMI video (half height Intel GPU card) and a built in old fashioned VGA connector - the problem is finding a monitor which still has that type of VGA input -- Using one of those "Multi-port" docking type of boxes the lowest resolution I can get is 640 X 480 which looks really weird on a large monitor !!!! Even in text mode when booting up or logging on via SSH from a remote Windows laptop.

Cheers
jimbo

Bree · Mar 27, 2024

spapakons said:
PS: Windows 3.0 could run in old graphics cards such as CGA 320x200 4 colors, EGA 320x200 16 colors and even Hercules 720x360 B/W. But I think it would be rather difficult to run Windows 11 in that low resolution... just kidding

My least appropriate device for Windows 11 has a 1024x600 screen. That I consider to be the lowest practical resolution for Windows 11. I don't use any Start menu replacements, apart from not having room for the Recommended section (no great loss there) the standard Start does a good enough job.

What can be an issue though is that a few apps use some fixed size windows that are too tall to fit the screen, their size was chosen assuming W11's minimum specification of a high definition (720p) display. Setting the Taskbar to auto-hide can help in some, but not all cases.

spapakons · Mar 27, 2024

Bree said:
My least appropriate device for Windows 11 has a 1024x600 screen. That I consider to be the lowest practical resolution for Windows 11. I don't use any Start menu replacements, apart from not having room for the Recommended section (no great loss there) the standard Start does a good enough job.

What can be an issue though is that a few apps use some fixed size windows that are too tall to fit the screen, their size was chosen assuming W11's minimum specification of a high definition (720p) display. Setting the Taskbar to auto-hide can help in some, but not all cases.

View attachment 91668

If it has Intel 945G graphics there was a Registry hack to enable 1024x768 resolution which is squeezed vertically to the native resolution 1024x600 to fit the screen. The image is very little blurry but you can fit most applications. I used this hack back in Windows 8 because 1024x768 was the minimum required resolution to enable the new tiles interface (aka Metro screen or start screen). I don't know if that applies to other Intel graphics adapters.

spapakons · Mar 27, 2024

Found the Registry hack: Change Acer Aspire one D250 resolution
Hopefully it works in Windows 11 as well.

PS: Apart from the Microsoft WDDM 1.0 for Intel 945G installed by Windows Update, there are modified official Intel drivers for Windows 7 64-bit that install and work in Windows 10/11. I don't have the link right now, check www.tenforums.com

classic35mm · Mar 30, 2024

spapakons said:
PS: Windows 7 style start button and start menu were done with Open Shell.

spapakons, may I ask, how do you like Open Shell? How does it compare to alternatives -- Start11, StartAllBack, and ExplorerPatcher -- if you've tried them?

I'm currently running Windows 7 on my computer, but will be getting a Windows 11 computer in a few weeks, so I'm curious what the best start menu replacement software is the best.

The thing I love about the Windows 7 start menu is that it displays pinned and recent documents associated with particular applications. For me, this is a super efficient way to access recent and important documents by application.

spapakons · Mar 30, 2024

That's why I installed Classic Shell first and Open Shell later to get the Windows 7 start button and start menu on Windows 8 and later. The start button is from a Windows 7 skin, but you don't have to switch to that skin. Just set a custom start button and browse to the .png file.

spapakons · Apr 2, 2024

Here it is, to save you the trouble. Just set it as custom start button in Open Shell and configure the start button to be or the left of the taskbar in Settings, Personalization, Taskbar. If you are using 150% scaling manually change the start button size to 60 to overlap the original Windows 11 start button, so it doesn't show under it. For larger scaling increase size as necessary.