So the issue I've run into on multiple older applications since I started using a 4K laptop display is that the text, buttons, and text fields don't scale properly.
No settings I've tried with screen scale settings, DPI settings, or windows compatibility settings have been able to fix the issue on a handful of these applications.
The consciences on various forums seems to be that the issue comes from an application telling the windows OS that it is DPI aware when it's really not.
The fix is to use an external manifest that overrides the default setting and lets Windows know that the application isn't really DPI aware so that Windows will scale the application properly.
There are 3 steps:
1 - Add a registry key that tells Windows to prefer an external manifest if it's present.
2 - Read out the existing .exe manifest.
3 - Change the manifest “dpiAware” setting from “true” to “false” and save it externally in the same directory as the .exe
This has worked GREAT on a few applications I've been having trouble with.
Of course Open Rocket isn’t an executable, it’s a Java bin, so for O.R. you have to create the manifests for the Java applications that run the bin
"C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.8.0_71\bin\java.exe"
and
"C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.8.0_71\bin\javaw.exe"
(You may only need to do one for the java.exe, but I did both.)
1 – Registry key. You just do this once, and then you can use external manifests on any application you want.
I followed the instructions on the webpage bellow
https://pocketnow.com/2016/01/25/hidpi-scalling-in-windows-10
That page is for Adobe products, so do use that manifest, just follow the instructions for adding the registry key.
2 – I use a free app called Manifest View to read out the existing manifest from the .exe
https://weblogs.asp.net/kennykerr/manifest-view-1-0
Keep in mind the text you copy and paste from this application is NOT formatted correctly.
3 – Create, format, edit and save the new external manifest file.
I just used an online xml formatting tool to correct the format.
https://www.webtoolkitonline.com/xml-formatter.html
Make sure to also remove all the extra lines with the – sign.
Copy the newly formatted text into a plain text file that is saved into the .exe directory with the same name as the application and .manifest at the end.
Example: java.exe.manifest
Don't forget to change the dpiAware setting from "true" to "false"!
Reboot and enjoy! The application should now be scaled correctly.
