h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have a laptop running Windows 7 Basic. Recently the character size on icon titles, window title bars and menu items (including Startup menu) went tiny for no reason I could see. Dialog box text was also affected. Other text, such as Word documents and Internet pages, was fine.

I managed a partial solution via the display settings, but this is fixing a symptom not the cause of the problem. Aside from that, some text is still too small.

Can anybody think of a reason for the sudden change in text size and suggest a better solution to the problem?

Is there some accessibility setting you may have inadvertently triggered?

Here's a BBC page on the subject:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/accessibility/guides/text_larger/computer/win/win7/

Weird.

I know how to fix a problem you're not having.

It's easy to accidentally change the text size in your browser with the ctrl and plus or minus keys.

But other than changing the screen resolution or going through the accessibility settings, which would have had to be set to enlarge text previously and returned to default to shrink your text, I don't even know how to change the icon text size.

So...

https://www.amazon.com/Magnifying-Horizontal-Magnification-Shockproof-Resistant/dp/B017MVQ0NU/ref=sr_1_5_s_it?s=hpc&ie=UTF8&qid=1471873434&sr=1-5&keywords=magnifying+glasses

sorry,

http://www.amazon.com/Magnifying-Horizontal-Magnification-Shockproof-Resistant/dp/B017MVQ0NU/ref=sr_1_5_s_it?s=hpc&ie=UTF8&qid=1471873434&sr=1-5&keywords=magnifying+glasses

Changing the screen resolution did nothing to fix the tiny text. The advice on the BBC page covers all the things I tried, including my partial solution.

As for paulh's magnifier, I know it was meant tongue-in-cheek, but to me it's more than .

(Damn it! just lost my post.)


I just did a quick Google and found just what you might be looking for (and might explain what happened in the first place).

Click on your background then press and hold ctrl while using your scroll wheel.

I also found this suggestion:

"Right click desktop and select "personalize"

Search for "color scheme" in search bar (top right)

select "change windows color and metrics"

Manually change settings here"

[Waits to find out whether that worked. ]

While we wait, I'd just like to say that I wish we had a new smiley, rather like , but for when your post disappears as the currently on duty running h2g2's servers forgets you are a registered and logged on researcher.

You'll have to wait till tomorrow to find out if it works. My laptop is turned off and it's staying off.

I know about changing sizes in display properties but it would still be fixing the symptom and not the problem. Same with Ctrl+ scroll wheel. I didn't do anything to cause the problem (it off on start up), so I'll be interested to see if that works.

You could try a System Restore to a point before this happened.

On my Windows 7 laptop this is:
Control Panel -->System and Security -->System --> System Properties --> System Protection --> System Restore

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the problem.

Ctrl+scroll wheel didn't do anything.

I'm reluctant to do a system restore because I've never set a point to restore to. It will take me back to a raw state (i.e., laptop fresh out of the box) and I don't want to have to go through the hassle of setting things up again.

My system is usable as it is. I'll just have to live with a few things not being the size I'd like.

Ctrl + scroll wheel should have done something even if it doesn't fix the original problem.

You did click on the background/desktop first, right?

But yeah, that's not it.

I just tested it again and it's not changing the text size, but the icon size.

Hmmm...

It might be a symptom of malware google do a good clean up tool that might help

https://www.google.com/chrome/cleanup-tool/

Maybe this will help.

Well, not unless I post the link.

http://www.asknguyen.com/change-desktops-font-size-windows-7.html