Skylanders: Spyro's Adventures versus Media Center PC - Fight!

Skylanders: Spyro's Adventures versus Media Center

So, my current gaming machine is using the motherboard (and Win7 OS) from my Media Center PC. Essentially, I upgraded the Media Center PC with the graphics card from my old gaming rig. When I first installed Skylanders: Spyro's Adventures, It wouldn't launch. I didn't even get the Activision animation video. Just a blank screen that said, "NGL" in the top-left corner, and an immediate crash upon trying to play the game. I resolved this problem, but it was quite a pain to figure it out.

As it turns out, the Media Center computer had been set up with large icons, to make it easy to see from across the room. The "Make it easier to read what's on your screen" setting apparently wreaks havoc on the Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure, however, and it will not launch when the icon size value is set to 150%. When I changed the icon size settings down to 100% (down from 150%), the game ran fine. I found that I was able to play with the settings on 100% or 125%, but not 150%.

How to solve the Win7 Media Center / Skylanders: Spyro's Adventures problem:

1. In Win7, go to Control Panel > Appearance and Personalization > Display
2. Under "Make it easier to read what's on your screen", my computer was set to "Larger - 150%". It worked when I changed the value to "Smaller - 100% (default)" or the 125% percent option.

Note: to those who find the description above to be a bit clunky, my apologies. It uses the words Skylanders, Spyro, Adventures, Win7, Windows 7, NGL, Activision, Media Center, Crash and Not Launch repetitively in hopes of making this solution easier to find.