Roughly 90% of all 10 inch netbooks on the market today have 1024 x 600 pixel displays. OK, I made that number up off the top of my head, but aside from a handful of models with 1024 x 576 or 1366 x 768 pixel screens, it’s pretty much true. Most netbooks have the same display resolution. And while it’s generally good enough for viewing most web pages, videos, and other apps, every now and again you’re likely to run into an application that requires a higher resolution screen to run. Fortunately, there’s a way to trick your netbook into thinking it has a higher resolution display — assuming you’re running Windows 7.

Here’s how it works. You have to search for a registry setting called “Display1_DownScalingSupported” and change the value from 0 to 1. You can find step by step instructions at Netbook Live.

Once you’ve made the change and rebooted your computer, you should be able to use the built in display resolution tool in Windows 7 to try out two new resolutions: 1024 x 768 and 1152 x 864. Both will provide a bit of extra space on your screen, making it easier to work with programs that have large windows or minimum display resolution requirements higher than 1024 x 600.

This solution is similar to the driver update I told you about last month.

But there is a catch. You’re not actually creating more pixels on your display. That’s physically impossible. Instead you’re using software to emulate a higher resolution screen. And that means some of those pixels are going to be shaped funny. The result is that text will look a bit fuzzy and hard to read. To be honest, I wouldn’t recommend you try this at all unless you’re desperately trying to get run some game or other app that won’t run under any other conditions.

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24 replies on “Hack to increase the screen resolution on Windows 7 netbooks”

  1. My HP Folio13 is running at 1366×768, and this hack only gave me two more options -downwards-. 🙁 1360×768 and 1280×720. Well worth a try though.. 🙂

    1. My work laptop, a HP Elitebook 2570p, is also running 1366×768, but the hack didn’t give me any better options here either 🙁

  2. worked well with Acer aspire one-Windows 8-Now can open all programmes that wouldn’t open before due to resolution being too low.
    Thanks

  3. I have amd processor instead of ıntel . When I tried this,I figured out our display value already 1, I really want to elevate our resolutıon , any suggest?

  4. I tried it on my notebook. I was able to have two more options, as you have stated, in my resolution setting but every time I try to change into 1024×768 or 1152×864, the system shuts down and restarts. I want to change the resolution to be able to install a program. Please help. Thanks.

  5. can we put the value higher than ‘1’ ?? what will happen?? is the screen resolution option will be higher too??

    1. The 0 represents off,  and the 1 means on. other numbers will not give you any more screen resolution.

  6. tried both amending register and downloading NRC both wont allow me to increase past 1024*600
    acer netwook 531

    any suggestions ?

  7. this seems to only work with intel netbooks. i have an acer 521 and it has amd neo and ati graphics. cant find this anywhere in the registry

    1. I have an acer 521, the registry is there but has no effect. And as Paulfahyuk stated NRC did work either; maybe my modeline was incorrect??

        1. Are there any other hacks or software that you know of that will support AMD? (I’m running on Windows 7 Pro). Thanks in advance.

  8. Very happy that you decided to post such a useful piece of info. My netbook is no longer useless to me. XD

  9. I gave this a try on a number of resolutions in the past, but as expected the results are poor.

    Blurry text is soon very annoying, and I always change back to the native resolution after a few minuets.

  10. I have the driver that does this from Intel and it *works* but it’s not pretty. Some applications still don’t see the right resolution and others, if it works, you have to figure out how to scroll to see the entire image. I found myself able to play certain games (because they saw the right resolution) but the buttons were below my screen! Net effect was still unplayable.

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