Magnifier is a magnification tool for the visually impaired to use Microsoft Windows. When it is run, it creates a bar at the top of the screen that greatly magnifies where the mouse is. Magnifier was first included as a sample in the Active Accessibility SDK/RDK for Windows 95 and later made a standard Windows utility starting with Windows 98. Magnifier can be used to magnify the screen up to 9 times its normal size prior to Windows Vista. Windows Vista and later allow up to 16x magnification.
In Windows Vista, Magnifier uses WPF, which in turn uses vector images to render the content. As a result, the rendered magnified image is sharp and not pixelated.[1] However, this is useful only for Windows Presentation Foundation applications. Non-WPF applications are still magnified the traditional way. Also, due to a change introduced in WPF 3.5 SP1, this functionality is lost if .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 is installed. [2]
Microsoft has also released a Magnification API to allow assistive technology applications to use the Magnifier engine.[3]
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