How do I force windows 8 into 1280x720?

Windows 8 has a minimum resolution of 1024x768, unless you are running it in a VM. As such it doesn't support going into 1280x720 (since 720 < 768). Windows 7 allowed this, but the modes are missing from Windows 8.

My video card and monitor support 1280x720

But it is missing from the slider:

How do I force windows 8 into 1280x720 ?

Solution 1:

From Screen Resolution select Advanced Settings and then List All Modes. From here select the desired resolution, OK and Apply.

(Thanks to Bob for this suggestion.)

Solution 2:

AFAIK, you cannot set 1280x720 as your resolution, but you can downscale it to 1024x768. To do this, you simply need to search the key Display1_DownScalingSupported in your registry and change every entry which has value 0 to 1.

After rebooting your system you should have some more resolutions to choose from.