I am running a Windows XP Virtual Machine in order to work from home for my Database class. To accomodate my vision problems, I have set XP to Windows Classic Style with High Contrast Black Extra Large as my theme. However, I have two problems: 1. Access 2010 is completely ignoring XP's display settings and showing everything as Black-on-white, which is completely unreadable for me. 2. The Extra Large fonts apply to menus and Title Bars, but the content area of Windows is still displaying normal sized text. Any help on resolving either issue would be appreciated.
Access 2007 respects high contrast mode on Windows 7. I suspect that the issue is either a regression on the part of Access 2010, or a fault with the way it interacts with Windows XP, at least as far as color scheme goes. Perhaps see if there's an option in Access's configurations to provide it's own high-contrast color scheme? THEREFORE: This is an issue with Windows XP, an issue with Office 2010, or (most likely) an issue with the way in which those two systems interact. Unfortunately, not having valid licenses to Windows XP OR Office 2010, I cannot know for sure which is the case. EDIT: PARTIAL WORKAROUND FOR INCORRECT COLORS:<br>I am led to believe that the autohotkey script mentioned at this link will invert the colors. While not a solution that I would rely on for daily usage - using it drives up CPU usage a whole lot and it doesn't work right for me on Windows 7 - it does work though. On the off chance you don't feel like installing autohotkey to run the script/are in a mood to trust strangers: I have compiled an executable version, available at this link. Use F9 to toggle screen inverting on or off and ESC to quit out of the script. This will invert all on-screen colors, so if the application menus are already correctly colored for you, you may have to F9 toggle the script off before interacting with menus. FONT SIZE: This method should work, but at the expense of super-sizing several other things on screen. WARNING: THE FOLLOWING METHOD CHANGES THE DPI THAT WINDOWS USES FOR SCALING. IT AFFECTS NOT JUST TEXT, BUT THE SIZE OF ALL ON-SCREEN OBJECTS. IT WILL INCREASE THE FONT SIZES OF TEXT IN ALL WINDOWS, AS WELL AS THE SIZE OF ALL YOUR ICONS AND MOUSE CURSOR Open Display Properties (Right click the destkop, select properties), Click on the Settings tab (right-most tab), Click on the Advanced button (bottom right of the properties window, just above "Apply" button). This opens up a new window. In this window, on the General tab (usually the default, leftmost tab), there is a dropbox labeled DPI setting. From here, you can select Normal Size (96), large Size (120), or Custom setting. I would suggest choosing Custom, as it gives you a ruler you can click and drag on to fine-tune scaling, along with a preview of what text will look like at that scaling. Choose a scaling, click OK, click OK, click OK, and allow it to log you off and/or reboot your computer.
