You’re running an application on a PC with a high DPI display and some (or all) of the controls are too small. You do not want to change the system-wide scaling settings just to make this application more usable.
The solution: Change the app’s high DPI setting
Windows 10 allows you to change the high DPI settings for each application.
Open the application.
Right-click on the app icon in the taskbar.
Right-click on the app’s name.
Select Properties:
If this method does not work, locate the application’s folder and right-click on the application file (.exe), then select Properties.
Select the Compatibility tab.
Click on Change high DPI settings:
Check the Override high DPI scaling behavior checkbox and select a new setting from the drop-down list:
Confirm both open dialogs with OK.
“System” should solve the issue of some controls being smaller than others), though the app will look a bit blurry. “System (enhanced)” will try to make everything look more crisp. You might want to try out all settings (and you may have to restart the app to see any changes).
The Problem: Your administrator has blocked this application…
You’re trying to install a ClickOnce application and get an error message saying: “Your administrator has blocked this application because it potentially poses a security risk to your computer”:
You are the administrator and don’t remember blocking any applications (if you’re not the admin, contact them instead of reading this article).
The reason this is happening
The ClickOnce trust prompt is disabled on your operating system, so instead of a dialog (prompt) which allows you to either proceed with the installation or not, you just get the message above.
There should be five subkeys, one for each security zone:
Each subkey can have one of the following values:
Disabled: No trust prompt is shown, instead you get the error message above.
Enabled: A trust prompt is shown.
AuthenticodeRequired: A trust prompt is shown only for signed applications (other applications cannot be installed).
Trust prompt example
If the application you’re trying to install has been published on the Internet, you’ll want to set the Internet subkey to “Enabled” (or to “AuthenticodeRequired” if the application has been digitally signed). You should then see a trust prompt instead of the “your administrator has blocked this application” error:
Free Trust Prompt Tool
As an alternative to editing the registry manually, you can also use a free trust prompt tool I wrote:
It allows you to easily display and modify the trust prompt configuration.
Notes:
If you don’t trust yourself or other people using your PC, you can change the respective zone setting back to “Disabled” after installing the ClickOnce application. The trust prompt configuration has no effect on installed applications and their updates.
You could also add the publisher’s site to your trusted sites and only enable trust prompts for the TrustedSites subkey.
Are you wondering why all your trust prompt settings have been changed to “Disabled”? Unfortunately, I have no idea. I’ve had this happen on multiple PCs and I’m pretty sure I didn’t do this myself.
I confirmed that the Windows display language was set to English. I tried deleting the German language pack, but it did not make a difference: my Windows was still bilingual.
