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How to run or adjust Windows application efficiently in any screen resolution in C# 4.0?

How to run or adjust Windows application efficiently in any screen resolution in C# 4.0?
I have done it in 1600 x 1200 resolution but if I try in lower resolutions only some part of the forms are visible.
How to solve this problem? I have searched a lot and got to know about Anchor & Dock will be useful but also to came to know that these should be used from the beginning of designing but I have completed my application while this resolution is now causing the problem when I install the application in any system

The quick and dirty method of making sure your controls remain visible would be to place a Panel on the form, set Dock = Fill and AutoScroll = True, then place every other control in your form inside it. Your controls won't get cut off, but your program won't win any awards for asthetics. If the program is brand new, that's really not the way you want to start things off.
You could redesign it to make use of Anchors and Docking, as you mentioned. You could also place items such as a row of Button controls or a series of TextBox controls in a FlowLayoutPanel, which will take care of repositioning them as you resize the form.
But if adjusting for screen resolutions is important to you, a better way would have been to use WPF from the start. Controls are automatically resized and repositioned as needed, based on their container control.

The real question should be:
How do I want the controls to resize themselves with their parent?
The answer is that you need to specify anchors. Anchors are used to tell your controls how they should react on resize, and what the concerns should be.
Lets say you have a form with two [Cancel] and [OK] buttons. They are usually seen fit at the bottom right of your window. But the default Anchor property is set to Top, Left, so on your form's resize, they stick to the Top, Left corner where they belong according to the default settings. This won't be any trouble if your maximize your form, thus you'll have your button probably in the middle of the screen. But at least, you will see every controls adequately.
But what if resize your form smaller and smaller? Do you still want them to stick at the Top, Left, or Bottom, Right would be more useful? My guess is that you should set the Anchor property to Bottom, Right, for those two.
This might come in handy to have different Anchor property settings depending on how you want your control to react to your form resize. Let's take three TextBox controls aligned horizontally with each other. Perhaps your longer field will be your object Description property located on horizontal-center of your form. Then, when you risize, you have to think what would make more sense on resize. If it is to make it longer on resize in order to fill your form width with all your control, then perhaps you want the DescriptionTextBox to get wider and wider, and the contraray should also be true, on form's resize, you probably want this field to be resized smaller too. Then, to make this happen, you have to set the Anchor property to Left, Right, so that the edge of your DescriptionTextBox control remains at the same very distance of your form's edge at any time.
Another thing is of concern in case of resizing to smaller window, is its MinimumSize property. One shall agree that there is use to have a form of size 34x34 pixels. So, setting your MinimumSize property to a certain size which makes sens for the form to exist, you will avoid display glitches of controls getting one over another.
For more details on the Anchor property: Control.Anchor Property
For more details on the MinimumSize property: Control.MinimumSize Property

Control proportions different between runtime and designer

i'm currently modifying an existing C# WinForm project. I try to arrange some controls inside a GroupBox. However on runtime, they seem to be aligned differently and the Groupbox has a lot more space. Is there some option checked or is this the standard behavior? Any hints are highly appreciated! Thanks!
Here is what it looks like, as you can see there is no way except trial and error to arrange the checkboxes. On runtime there is easily enough space to have four colums in one row, in designer i can hardly fit three without having them overlap.

To prevent the groupbox to resize according to its content, you should make GroupBox.AutoSize to false.
GroupBox groupBox = new GroupBox();
groupBox.AutoSize= false;

check to Size property, and check if someone change it, for the checkbox Location to stay the same in different sizes of the form use anchor property and set it to left or left top.
it's basically must be the size, if the autoSize is off. check what's the starting size, and the size after the form is shown. it shouldn't be the same, but if it is, you can set it to smaller

Check the Anchor property on the checkboxes. Looks like some of them might be anchored to the right.

Not sure it applies to these checkboxes, but AutoScaleMode can impact the scaling of a form. Set to None to ensure it doens't get scaled.

Constrain the movement of a SplitContainer in C#?

I have a SplitContainer in my form.
On the 1st panel I have a TreeView and a ListView on the 2nd. (Classic)
Now I want to limit the size of the 1st panel (with the TreeView) to 250 pixels wide.
I wish to block the separator from moving too much (or too less).
How do I do that?

You can use SplitContainer.Panel1MinSize property.
SplitContainer1.Panel1MinSize = 250;

First, if you want to constrain the TreeView to be EXACTLY 250px, set the FixedPanel to be Panel1, set the IsSplitterFixed property to True, and set the Panel1MinSize to 250. This basically makes the split graphical only; the splitter will default to a size large enough for the TreeView, and will not move.
If you want to constrain the TreeView to be AT LEAST 250px, simply set Panel1MinSize to be 250. This will prevent the user from making the panel SMALLER than that, though they can make it LARGER. There is no maximum constraint, but you can get the effect of one by setting a maximum size for the window and a minimum size for the other panel of the SplitContainer.

Just a little addition.
Here is the code to place in the frmMain_Load() (or whereever). In the code, the minimum is 250 pixels and the maximum is 400 pixels.
this.splitContainer1.Panel1MinSize = 250;
this.splitContainer1.Panel2MinSize = this.splitContainer1.Width - 400;
Do not forget to place the same code in the resize event frmMain_Resize()

I guess you should take look at the FixedPanelProperty of the splitContainer. I allows you to only let the other panel grow and shrink on rezise operations:
The resizing is much smoother.

Keeping One Split Container Panel Fixed Width?

I can't seem to figure out how to keep a panel's width fixed in a Split Container in a WinForm.
Any suggestions?

property SplitterPanel.FixedPanel - set one of the panels to fixed size
property SplitterPanel.IsSplitterFixed - set to true

In order to make panel1 fixed
In the properties of the SplitContainer, set the FixedPanel property to Panel1.
Then, set the SplitDistance and Panel1MinSize to the same value.

Fix Panel (Lock Panel):
SplitContainer.FixedPanel = FixedPanel.Panel

If you'd keep one panel's size fixed, there is no logical way to move the splitter. Since you can't move the splitter, it just doesn't make sense to use a SplitContainer anymore. Use two Panel controls.

It depends what you want.
FixedPanel let's the user resize the panel but it won't resize automatically when the control is resized.
IsSplitterFixed will disable the splitter, but it will still resize automatically when the control is resized.
If you use both then it will be totaly fixed. But then you're better off using two panels like Hans said.

// from Microsoft documentation similar to Dmitri answer:::::::::::
// if make panel1 fixed:
mySplitContainer.FixPanel = System.Windows.Forms.FixedPanel.Panel1;
// if make panel2 fixed (in this case can't use fixed splitter distance):
mySplitContainer.FixPanel = System.Windows.Forms.FixedPanel.Panel2;
// and to be safe set the appropriate panel min size for the splitcontainer too;

Docking and Anchoring on a Windows Form application

I'm developing an app for Windows Mobile 5.0 and above, with C# and .NET Compact Framework 2.0 SP2.
I have a WinForm with two panels inside (upperPanel and bottomPanel). I want that upperPanel always fill 2/3 of form's height, and bottomPanel fills 1/3 of form's height. Both panels will fill completly form's width.
I've used this:
upperPanel.Dock = Fill;
bottomPanel.Dock = Bottom;
But upperPanel fills the form completly.
How can I do this? I want, more o less, the same gui on differents form factors and on landscape or protrait mode.
Thank you.

What you need to do is to put the bottom panel on first and set its Dock property to Bottom. Then set the panel's height to be 1/3 of the form's height. Finally, add a second panel and set its Dock property to Fill. The key here is that you want to add the control that will fill the remaining area to be added last. Alternatively, you can play around with the Bring to Front and Send to Back commands in Visual Studio to get the designer to cooperate.
You may also need to hook the OnSizeChanged event for the form and re-set the height of the bottom panel to account for layout changes. It's been a little while since I did compact framework programming, so I'm not sure.

Right click on the upperPanel and select Bring To Front. However, I don't think this will give you the result you want. When you resize, the bottom panel will remain the same height, while the upper panel will stretch to fill the form.
Using your docking settings, with this code might do the trick:
protected override void OnSizeChanged(EventArgs e)
{
base.OnSizeChanged(e);
this.bottomPanel.Height = Convert.ToInt32((double)this.Height / 3.0);
}

Set both panels to "not anchored". That is: Remove Dock-Value and clear the Anchor property. Then, move the controls so they are sized the way you'd like them to be sized.
After that, upon resizing the form, they should resize relatively.
EDIT
Oops, just tried it and sure it doesn't work. I mixed this up with a solution that automatically keeps controls centered within the window...
Well, I'd guess you then have to create a handler for the form's Resize event and manually align the controls after the form has been resized.

Go to Tools, Other Windows, Document Outline. Find the two panels, and swap the order of them. The control that has DockStyle.Fill has to come first for it to be docked correctly. (or last.. never sure which one it is, but it is one of them :p)
This won't solve the always 1/3 and 2/3 issue though... cause the bottom panel will have a fixed height (unless I am mistaken). I think maybe the TableLayoutPanel supports this though...
Update: As noted in the comments, that panel doesn't exist in the compact framework. So, I suppose the easiest solution to this problem would then try to use the docking, but update the height of the bottom panel whenever the size of the form changes.

If you want this to work perfectly you'll need to add some code to the Resize event of the Form which then specifically works out the relative sizes and places the controls in the correct place after a resize.
If you're not worried about losing precision and the forms aren't going to move much you can avoid this by using some relatively smart anchoring. Essentially you're going to have to select a "grower" (the part of the form that gets bigger, the bigger the form gets). In this scenario I would probably anchor the top part to Top | Left | Right and the bottom part to Top | Left | Right | Bottom. This would mean that the lower part of the form will get bigger if the form is expanded. In most cases this is acceptable. If it isn't use the Resize event and some code.

The easiest way to do this is to nest panels. Just set up panels for top bottom and fill. Then use panels within those panels to do the same. The only issues I've had therein are datagrid resizing, which is always a pain anyway. in that case, you have to use some code to resize the datagrid control on the form resize event.

I would like to add a point to #jasonh answer.
For the panel that occupies 2/3 of the form, you will have to set the AutoScroll property of the panel to true.
This will enable the panel to display scroll when the control size exceed the visibility to the user and also ensure the visibility of the smaller panel which is 1/3 of the forms height.

You can get the required design by using nested panels along with few setting with Anchoring and Docking Properties.Follow the following steps:
1) Add the Form and put a Panel1 on it. Set its Dock Property as 'Fill' and ResizeMode as 'Grow&Shrink'.
2) Add Second panel2 and set its Dock Property to 'Bottom', Set the Height and set the Anchor property to 'Top,Left'.
3)Add Third panel and set its Dock Property to 'None', Set the Height and set the Anchor property to 'Top,Bottom,Left,Right'.
Save and Compile. Now all the panels Would maintain their relative Positioning With resizing.