Running ArcGIS 10 on Windows 10

There are a lot of complaints on web fora from people trying to run ArcGIS 10.x on a Windows 10 OS. One complaint that frequently can be read is the fact that the menu bar and/or toolbar and/or ArcToolbox window items are displayed way too small on high-resolution displays (e.g. 3200×1800 HD).

I experienced the same problems when I installed ArcGIS 10.1 on my new Windows 10 laptop: the toolbar items and my ArcToolbox window items were not readable. I’ve been experimenting with different solutions and found this combination to be working for me. I hope that it will help you as well:

1. Go to the Start menu > All apps > ArcGIS. Then right-click ArcMap 10.1 > More > Open file location.
   This action opens the ArcMap 10.1 start item in Windows Explorer. 
2. Right-click the ArcMap 10.1 start item in Windows Explorer > Compatibility-tab > Select Disable display scaling on high DPI settings. Click OK.
   It is not necessary to enable compatibility mode for an older version of Windows, e.g. Windows 7 or even Vista (SP 2).
3. Now open ArcMap 10.1.You should now observe that part of your problem has been solved, but not yet entirely. So do the following: In the menu bar, select Customize > Customize mode > tab Options, select Large icons.

This combination of actions should have changed the size of your menu bars and window items to a readable size. The only icons that still are small in my case, are the icons in the top of my Table of Contents, but I can live with that.