Using Remote Desktop from a device with a hi-res screen (say, a Surface Pro) is decidedly tricky – as everything displays 1:1 scale and so looks tiny.
If the machine you are remoting into runs Server 2008 R2 or later, you can change the dpi zooming setting (see here).
But for older hosts, that doesn't work.
Using normal Remote Desktop, you can connect with a lower resolution, say 1280×768, and turn on smart-sizing. However smart-sizing can scale down (to display a huge desktop in a small area) but does not seem to scale up (to display a small desktop in a big area).
Using the Windows 8 Remote Desktop App, you can zoom – but you cannot set the default resolution of the host.
What I want is a lower resolution in the host, scaled up to fit my screen.
So both of those are close to what I want, but dont quite work. So question is:
Does the Remote Desktop App allow screen resolution to be set somehow?
Is there some other Remote Desktop client that can handle zooming better?
Best Answer
I eventually found a solution to this via this blog post by Falafel Softare.
Basically:
I've written this up in a bit more detail with screenshots on my blog.
Edit: Remote Desktop Connection Manager 2.2 has been replaced by version 2.7. People in comments say 2.7 will work on Win8.1 with some settings changed, however on Windows 10 doesnt look like it solves the problem. Unfortunately MS have not left v2.2 anywhere for us.