Hi Karlis,
First of all, thanks for the speedy reply! I do not fully agree with your arguments to be honest. You say that Windows wasn't initially designed for high res displays. It probably wasn't
initially, but since the introduction of Windows 8 it clearly is. As you say yourself, it looks pretty, so why wouldn't they? This is really nothing new, I remember working on 640x480 res screens. Since then resolutions have gradually increased and nowadays full HD (1920x1080) is the standard and I just happen to have bought a laptop with a next generation screen. You probably follow CES and the likes as well, so you know 4K screens have been introduced over a year ago already and are now becoming more and more affordable. 8K screens are already introduced. Whether it's a tiny screen such as a phone or a big ass screen such as a TV, resolutions will continue to increase as long as they human eye can tell the difference. So I clearly disagree with you and I don't find this ridiculous; it's evolution. I do think Microsoft could have done a better job though, at scaling non optimised applications, but that's a whole different discussion and one neither of us can do anything about unfortunately. (Apple did a better job with OSX I believe, but WeBuilder was probably the biggest reason why I wanted to stick with Windows in the first place.)
As for your argument whether this is not well suited for development work, I don't agree either.
I believe you have to develop for the devices that your users will be using. This also includes high res screens. For now, I'll admit that they are still the minority, but I don't believe this will last for long. Already, almost every current phone and tablet has a similar high DPI and with the mobile market still growing rapidly, there will be more and more users consuming the stuff we develop on these mobile devices. So the development process (in terms of testing) will only get easier if you have a screen similar to the one of your users.
All this being said, I appreciate that you take the time to look into this. For now, I followed your advice, but the explorer windows on the sides don't scale, so these are still useless.
I'll probably have to return the laptop, or go back to a 1600x900 resolution and waste 75% of my pixels. That's the downside of being an early adopter I guess...