Customize the Display (23H2) (Archived)

Windows 11 usually does a good job of configuring your PC to use its display at its native resolution and an optimal display scaling value based on its physical size and other factors. But you should still review these settings and ensure that they and other display-related options are configured to your liking.

Most of this work occurs in Display settings, which you can find by opening the Settings app and navigating to System > Display.

There’s a quicker way to get to Display settings: Just right-click the Desktop and choose “Display settings” from the context menu that appears.

Change the display resolution

Display settings lets you choose the native resolutions of your display and several other choices, all of which will be lower than the native resolution. You should make sure that this setting is set to your display’s native resolution because a lower resolution setting will make everything on-screen look blurry.

To do so, open Display settings and view the “Display resolution” setting in the “Scale & layout” section.

If you find user interface elements to be too small (or too big) at your display’s native resolution, you can make them bigger (or smaller) using the display scaling and text sizing settings noted below.

Change the display scaling

Once the display is set properly to its native resolution, you can use the display scaling capabilities in Windows 11–also found under “Scale & layout” in Display settings–to scale all of the user interface elements in the system so that they are sized as you prefer.

Here, for example, you can see the impact of switching a 14-inch Full HD+ display with a resolution of 1920 x 1200 from the default display scaling of 150 percent to 100 percent.

The scaling that Windows recommends is denoted with the text “(Recommended).” But feel free to change it to whichever value you prefer: Unlike with the resolution setting, none of the Scale choices will make the display look blurry.

You can also configure a custom scaling size between 100 and 500 percent. This is not generally recommended because these custom sizes can sometimes cut off user interface elements. But if you’d like to give it a shot, select the “Scale” setting in Display settings (not the size drop-down but the setting itself) to navigate to Custom scaling.

Here, you can enter a custom scaling value between 100 and 500 percent. You will need to sign out and then sign back in to see how the setting change impacted the display.

Make text bigger

You can also optionally scale on-screen text independently of other user interface elements. This is useful if you prefer to use a smaller display scaling setting and would like to make just the on-screen text bigger.

To change onscreen text size independently, open Settings and navigate to Accessibility > Text size. (Or, if you’re already in Display settings, navigate to Scale > Text size.)

You can also find this interface with Search or Settings search: look for make text bigger.

Here, you can use the Text size slider to scale onscreen text in 1 percent increments and preview the results in the Text size preview pane at the top. Select the “Apply” button when the text is exactly the size you prefer.

Below, you can see how changing the text size to 125 percent impacts the Windows 11 user interface: In modern apps, at least, it can have a pleasant effect.

Customize the display brightness

Windows will correctly configure the brightness of your display in most cases, and many modern displays support an auto-brightness feature that will adjust the screen brightness on the fly based on the lighting conditions around you or, if your PC hardware supports it, the content you’re viewing on the PC.

To change the display brightness on the fly, open Quick settings and use the Brightness slider.

Or, you can access your display’s brightness settings in the “Brightness & color” section of Display settings. If you expand this setting, you will see a Brightness slider, and, if your hardware supports it, options to change the brightness automatically when the lighting changes and/or change the brightness based on the content you’re viewing.

Enable and configure Night light

Like smartphones and tablets, Windows 11 supports a special display mode called Night light that removes a configurable amount of blue light from your PC’s display, making it appear warmer and more orange-colored. This feature is especially desirable at night because blue light is very harsh to our eyes and can impact our ability to sleep normally.

You can toggle Night light on and off manually in Display settings. But it’s better to set Night light to come on automatically on a set schedule–typically from sunset to sunrise–so that your PC is always configured optimally.

To do so, open Display settings and then select the “Night light” setting in the “Brightness & color” section. (Not the toggle switch.) On the Night light settings page that appears, toggle the setting “Schedule night light” to “On.”

Here, you can choose between “Sunset to sunrise” or your own custom schedule.

Experiment with the “Strength” slider as well. It will temporarily adjust the display warmth as you do so so you can find the right setting.

Enable and configure HDR

Windows 10 supports a modern display standard called HDR (high dynamic range) that provides a superior picture than more traditional SDR (standard dynamic range) displays, with brighter colors and deeper blacks. Depending on the capabilities of your PC, you might be able to enable HDR or just play HDR videos in compatible apps.

To find out whether your PC supports HDR, open Display settings and select the “HDR” (or “Use HDR”) option if available. This will open HDR settings.

The “Display capabilities” section details whether your PC supports HDR (“Use HDR”) and/or HDR video streaming.

If your PC supports neither, then there’s nothing you can do. There are no configurable options here for you.

Configure HDR

If you would like to take advantage of your PC’s HDR display capabilities, enable the setting “Use HDR.” When you do so, several other new settings appear in HDR settings.

If you have a portable PC, you may need to be connected to power to enable this option.

These include:

Auto HDR. When enabled, this feature will apply HDR effects to older video games that were created before HDR. It doesn’t work with all games, and it doesn’t work with non-game content. So if you don’t play games, leave this setting configured to Off.

Battery options. Because HDR amps up the display brightness, it can adversely impact the battery life of portable PCs. In general, we recommend leaving this setting on its default, “Optimize for battery life.” But you can change it to “Optimize for image quality” if you value that more.

You can also expand “Battery options” to reveal an additional option, “Allow HDR games, videos, and apps on battery,” that is self-explanatory.

HDR content brightness. By default, HDR content will appear at the brightest possible setting your display supports. But you can use this slider to adjust the brightness to your liking.

Configure HDR video streaming

If your display supports HDR video streaming, you can configure Battery options as noted in the previous section, and access other video playback options in Settings > Apps > Video playback.

But you can also use a unique HDR Display Calibration app to optimize the display for video playback.

To do so, select “HDR Display Calibration” in HDR settings. In the HDR Calibration app that appears, you can calibrate the display over a series of steps in a simple wizard.

The first time you use this feature, you will be prompted to download the Windows HDR Display Calibration app from the Microsoft Store.

Configure the refresh rate

While many displays still only support a standard 60 Hz (or, in certain locales, 50 Hz) display refresh rate, modern displays, especially those designed for video games and entertainment, now support faster refresh rates that update (or “refresh”) the display’s picture more frequently, creating a smoother, less flickery experience. Some even support dynamic refresh rate capabilities that increase the refresh rate only when doing so is advantageous–as when scrolling through a long web page or document or when using a smartpen–while sticking to a standard refresh rate otherwise to save battery life.

Regardless of which display type your PC uses, Windows 11 is configured to use the standard 60 Hz refresh rate by default. So you will need to configure the display to use a faster (or dynamic) refresh rate if desired.

To do so, open Settings and navigate to System > Display > Advanced display. There, you will find a “Choose a refresh rate” settings under “Display information” that provides a drop-down list of refresh rate choices.

If 60 Hz is the only choice in the drop-down, then there’s nothing to configure: The display only supports a 60 Hz refresh rate. But you may see options such as 90 Hz, 120 Hz, and others, and can choose accordingly. And if you see a “Dynamic” choice in the list, that means you can have the best of both worlds.

But wait, there’s more

This chapter focuses only on the top-level display configurations you should make when initially configuring and personalizing Windows 11, and it assumes you’re only using a single display. But there is a lot more to discover, including Windows 11’s support for multiple displays, and we cover additional related topics in the Displays chapter.