Posted on by IconLogic

ADOBE CAPTIVATE: Getting Past the DPI Awareness Error

Creating software simulations has always been one of Captivate's core strengths. From the Home screen, double-click Software Simulation, select the area of the screen or application to record, select your mode (or modes), click the Record button, and away you go.
 
The recording process is seamless, except when it's not. These days I'm seeing a particularly frustrating error appear for more and more of my students. After double-clicking Software Simulation, instead of seeing a Recording Area and a control panel, users are seeing an error message about DPI Awareness. Specifically, the message says "Capture is disallowed since High-density displaying was detected. Please set 'DPIAwareness = 1' in AdobeCaptivate.ini and restart the application."
 
 
Fortunately, the error only seems to affect people running a recent version of Windows 10 and only developers who are using a PC with a Retina display (such as a Microsoft Surface Pro). Unfortunately, there are more and more people with Retina displays who are reporting the error.
 
You can manually locate the AdobeCaptivate.ini file mentioned in the message by looking in the Adobe Captivate application folder. You can then edit the file in Notepad and change the DPI Awareness from 0 to 1 (and then restart Captivate).
 

 
After changing the DPI Awareness and restarting Captivate, the Captivate software will be pretty small. However, you'll be able to move forward with recording the software simulation.
 
While it's not difficult to edit the ini file, I'm betting if you're like most people, editing a support file in Notepad isn't something you're anxious to do. If so, I have a few alternatives for you.
 
First, close Captivate. Then right-click your desktop and choose Display settings. From the Scale and layout area, choose 100% from the Change the size of text, apps, and other items drop-down menu.
 
 
Return to Captivate and try to create a software simulation. If the DPI Awareness issue is gone, great. If not, exit Captivate, right-click your desktop and choose Display settings again. From the Scale and layout area, click Advanced scaling settings.
 
 
From the Fix scaling for apps area, turn off the option that allows Windows to try to fix apps so they're not blurry.
 
 
Return to Captivate and try again to create a software simulation. If things still aren't working, don't panic… I've got one more trick up my sleeve. With Captivate once again closed, right-click the AdobeCaptivate.exe file (located in the Adobe Captivate application folder) and choose Properties.
 
 
On the Compatibility tab, select Run this program in compatibility mode and choose Windows 8 from the drop-down menu.
 
 
Click the OK button and restart Captivate. While the program itself may look tiny, you'll be able to move forward with your software simulation.
 
Until a better solution is made available from either Adobe, Microsoft, or both, one or a combination of the steps above will likely work for you. If you have a better workaround, please share via a comment.
 
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