Forums Bug Reports Windows 8/8.1 cosmetic issue

Noticed this issue when I updated from Windows 7. Thought this would be fixed in the upcoming versions, but it kept being there for a few releases now. It just keeps hurting my eyes.

Here's a screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/QBO4rQa.png

Steps to reproduce the glitch:
1. Maximize mIRC
2. Disable the Treebar

It has been reported before, looks like a driver issue, if you try to update the display driver, can you still see this?

I did update my NVIDIA drivers a bunch of times already. If the Treebar is enabled in the maximized windowed it will show correctly. After I disabled the Treebar, it's back in the buggy state.

Edit: Again... I'm not sure if this happens on AMD hardware. If it does with Windows 8/8.1 then it should be something else.

Thanks for your bug report. The most common cause of this issue is a bug in the graphics driver. I just tried to reproduce this on XP, 7, and 8.1, on three different computers, using different screen resolutions, DPI settings, custom Windows appearance settings (changing window border widths), and so on, and was unable to. If you can provide a set of steps that will reproduce this, I will try again.

Please make sure that:

1) You restart your computer.

2) You test with a clean copy of mIRC, installed to the Documents/mIRC folder, using the "portable" option in the installer. This will ensure that mIRC uses default settings and no scripts.

3) You try different screen resolutions.

I don't know. The same thing happens. Usually it gets better but I still see a gray line instead of the window border. Usually this happens after I shut down the machine with this new hybrid hibernate shutdown that was introduced in Windows 8. Forgot to mention this. If I shut down the machine properly and start it again I get the following result.

Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/JWvB5rM.png

What else... I have a 9600GT running driver version 340.52 on Windows 8.1 Pro with Media Center 64bit at a resolution of 1280x1024 75hz on a 17" LCD panel. Oh and VGA...

Tried the portable installation and it's still there. What I can recommend you is to bluescreen your machine and see if you can reproduce the issue.

Reproducing the issue is simple. Run mIRC, maximize the windows and disable the treebar from the menu. But please check the screenshot first and compare it with your result. Do you get that gray line or everything is white on the right side?

Thank you for the reply Khaled! If you need some more details just ask!

Edit: Also I tried changing the resolution and refresh rate. Just crash your machine. As far as I know that's when I get the issue. It happens ONLY when the treebar is disabled. When it's on everything is ok.

Thanks for extra details. I repeated my tests on three different versions of Windows, using different DPI, resolutions, treebar on/off, Windows themes enabled/disabled, and so on, and have not been able to reproduce this issue. There is no gray line on the right for me - the MDI window expands fully to fill the whole window. When this issue has been reported in the past, it turned out to be a graphics driver issue, so that is very likely the reason for it in this case.

Well seems like I found a workaround. Tried messing with the compatibility settings and found out what the issue is. Seems like it's related to some DPI settings and maybe the driver. But yeah... still unsure what this problem is.

How I finally solved the display glitch is by going to the properties of mirc.exe and checking the "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings" option. Still unsure how this is related but it fixed the issue.

http://i.imgur.com/OqmjCeL.png
http://i.imgur.com/YgY8dUH.png

Still unsure if this is a driver issue. But at least we have a temporary workaround. Yeah... I don't use high DPI more, just regular 100% on the native resolution on my monitor. Does it look the same for you Khaled like in the screenshot?

Good to hear you found a workaround.

That said, I was finally able to reproduce it under Windows 7. However, I was only able to reproduce it one time, for several minutes. I then changed the Windows theme from Windows 7 to Classic and it stopped reproducing. I changed back to Windows 7 theme, and it still no longer reproduced. I tried restarting mIRC (using a clean version in all test cases), restarting Windows, changing themes, and so on, and have not been able to reproduce it again since on Windows 7.

I am inclined to think that this is a Windows bug that is only appearing intermittently based on some combination of changing themes, DPI settings, and so on.

Update: I have found that I am able to reproduce this under Windows 10 reliably. However, Windows 10 is still not stable. I tested using a debug version of mIRC and it appears that Windows 10 is intentionally, and incorrectly, limiting the size of the MDI window, preventing it from filling the whole window to the right when mIRC is maximized. So far, I have not been able to figure out why. It looks like a Windows/driver bug to me.

Update2: If I disable display scaling, that resolves the issue under Windows 10. I am not sure why this would resolve it either, since the Windows 10 DPI settings are also set at 100%, so this should make no difference.

I have found a reference to the same issue here. There is a reply to that post that links to the MSDN forums where other developers have discovered the same Windows bug. Unfortunately, it appears that it has never been fixed. The MSDN forums include a hack to get around the issue, however I am not yet sure if I will use it because it might have side-effects on the existing window-handling code in mIRC, which is extensive.

Don't bother with Windows 7. It was fine there. The problems started since Windows 8. I think it's a Windows bug but that's just a blind guess. The workaround I found doesn't make sense to me, but I thought it's worth a mention. Had some patience to experiment with a few things and that did the job.

Now here's another fix. You can use Windows 7 compatibility mode. That fixes the issue, but it has a little side effect. It makes the window borders a little bit thinner. Like for instance the application window and settings one and probably all the dialogs in mIRC.

Glad you were able to reproduce the issue. If there's nothing to do then at least we know something.

Just in case this issue comes up again, I thought I would add: I am now able to reproduce this on Windows 7 reliably. All I need to do is to switch to a specific resolution and it will appear. It does not happen with all resolutions, which is why I was unable to reproduce it before. It will then persist until I change Windows themes, at which point the issue goes away. So it is a Windows bug relating to how the maximum allowed MDI window width is calculated after the screen resolution is changed.

Awesome! I'm fine now with the workaround I found and works after reboots. Still can't understand why can't Microsoft fix these tiny issues. Oh well... at least they keep breaking more machines with faulty Windows updates at least.

Well seems like that the checkbox is only a partial workaround. With that option checked I cannot right click on users anymore. No menu is shown and I get a regular windows beep.