Today someone in a forum asked how to programmatically configure an application so that it runs in compatibility mode. Configuring this manually is easy, just open the file’s properties, select the Compatibility tab and apply the required settings. On Windows 7 this then looks as shown in the picture below.
Now whatever we configure here, it all gets written to the following location in the Windows Registry:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers
If the settings have to apply for all users the information must be stored here:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers
When configuring compatibility mode settings for an application executable, shortcut or batch file, a registry string is created for each item.
For each application there are three settings that can be applied. The compatibility mode, (Display) Settings and the Privilege Level. One or multiple values can be set (separated by a space).
Compatibility Modes
| Value | Description |
| WIN95 | Windows 95 |
| WIN98 | Windows 98 |
| WIN4SP5 | Windows NT 4.0 SP5 |
| WIN2000 | Windows 2000 |
| WINXPSP2 | Windows XP SP2 |
| WINXPSP3 | Windows XP SP3 |
| VISTARTM | Vista |
| VISTASP1 | Vista SP1 |
| VISTASP2 | Vista SP2 |
| WIN7RTM | Windows 7 |
| WINSRV03SP1 | Windows Server 2003 SP1 |
| WINSRV08SP1 | Windows Server 2008 SP1 |
Display Settings
| Value | Description |
| DISABLETHEMES | Disable Visual Themes |
| 640X480 | Run in 640 x 480 screen resolution |
| HIGHDPIAWARE | Disable display scaling on high DPI settings |
| 256COLOR | Run in 256 colors |
| DISABLEDWM | Disable Desktop Composition |
Privilege Level
| Value | Description |
| RUNASADMIN | Run program as an administrator |
If the settings are written into the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE part of the registry, the settings cannot be changed by a user that has no local administrative rights.
The following registry command line applies Windows XP SP3 compatibility mode and defines the application to run as administrator.
REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers" /v "C:\temp\compatmodel\iconsext.exe" /t REG_SZ /d "WINXPSP3 RUNASADMIN" /f
I can’t install Visual Studio 2010 on my Windows Server 2003 machine because the OS is trying to run the setup.exe in compatibility mode even though no compatibility mode is set on that file (nothing is set on its compatibility tab). Is it possible to disable compatibility mode checking on Windows Server 2003?
Alex,
This is the first solution I found that really works under 7, for a cmd file. The command line works great. Many thanks. Michel