How to re-enable 640×480 resolution for special purpose display on Server 2008r2

screen-resolutionwindows-server-2008-r2

The lowest resolution that Windows Server 2008r2 allows through the screen properties dialog is 800×600. I have a special secondary display that needs to run at 640×480. This has previously been running on Windows Server 2000, which supports 640×480 just fine. I want to retire the Win 2000 system and move the application to the 2008r2 box.

Is there any way (registry etc) to re-enable the 640×480 resolution option on the secondary monitor?

The display does not support DDC and is identified as an unknown analog monitor.

Best Answer

I did a little experimentation with some code I had around from another project a while back that directly accesses the Windows API for displays (EnumDisplaySettings and ChangeDisplaySettingsEx)

It was pretty easy to adapt it to set a resolution on a specific display from the command line. It works like a charm. I think MS just removed the setting from the dialog, but not from the underlying API and/or driver.

If anyone else needs a Windows command line tool for setting display resolution, I have posted it on my command line utilities page here.

Usage: DisplayResSet.exe /H -    This help
       DisplayResSet.exe with no parameters - list current display devices and supported modes
       DisplayResSet.exe /Dn /Xxxx /Yyyy - set resolution of device n to xxx by yyy pixels
       DisplayResSet.exe /Q - Quiet mode - suppress console output
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