Update July 4.
I ran an identical dummy app on both the Small Form Factor (SFF) machine and the Precision Tower (PT). The dummy app is the same one I displayed above, it had two axes and 8 buttons arrayed around the UIFigure. The only change I made from the version displayed above was to put in a startup function that output the positions of all the components into a .mat file. Just for completeness, I will post the dummy app text at the end of this description. I wrote the postions into an excel file for display. Here is the result of running in on the two machines.
Positions and display on execution on the Precision Tower (the display matches the appearance in app designer)


Postions and display after app execution on the SFF machine (the display does not match the appearance in the app designer):


The positions of all of the app components and the UIFigure are identical in both cases, but on the SFF the display is distorted. I would very much appreciate any idea why this could be happening and what I can do to fix it. As it is, this rather generic pc is useless for MATAB apps.
Here is the text of the dummy app for reference, apologizing for the space taken but I want to be absolutley clear.
classdef app1 < matlab.apps.AppBase
% Properties that correspond to app components
properties (Access = public)
UIFigure matlab.ui.Figure
Button8 matlab.ui.control.Button
Button7 matlab.ui.control.Button
Button6 matlab.ui.control.Button
Button5 matlab.ui.control.Button
Button4 matlab.ui.control.Button
Button3 matlab.ui.control.Button
Button2 matlab.ui.control.Button
Button matlab.ui.control.Button
UIAxes2 matlab.ui.control.UIAxes
UIAxes matlab.ui.control.UIAxes
end
% Callbacks that handle component events
methods (Access = private)
% Code that executes after component creation
function StartUp(app)
uipos = app.UIFigure.Position ;
axespos = app.UIAxes.Position;
axespos2 = app.UIAxes2.Position;
butpos = app.Button.Position;
butpos2 = app.Button2.Position;
butpos3 = app.Button3.Position;
butpos4 = app.Button4.Position;
butpos5 = app.Button5.Position;
butpos6 = app.Button6.Position;
butpos7 = app.Button7.Position;
butpos8 = app.Button8.Position;
save("app1.mat","butpos8","butpos7","butpos6","butpos5","butpos4","butpos3","butpos2",...
"butpos","uipos","axespos","axespos2");
end
end
% Component initialization
methods (Access = private)
% Create UIFigure and components
function createComponents(app)
% Create UIFigure and hide until all components are created
app.UIFigure = uifigure('Visible', 'off');
app.UIFigure.Position = [100 100 640 480];
app.UIFigure.Name = 'MATLAB App';
% Create UIAxes
app.UIAxes = uiaxes(app.UIFigure);
title(app.UIAxes, 'Title')
xlabel(app.UIAxes, 'X')
ylabel(app.UIAxes, 'Y')
zlabel(app.UIAxes, 'Z')
app.UIAxes.Position = [116 211 300 185];
% Create UIAxes2
app.UIAxes2 = uiaxes(app.UIFigure);
title(app.UIAxes2, 'Title')
xlabel(app.UIAxes2, 'X')
ylabel(app.UIAxes2, 'Y')
zlabel(app.UIAxes2, 'Z')
app.UIAxes2.Position = [116 14 300 185];
% Create Button
app.Button = uibutton(app.UIFigure, 'push');
app.Button.Position = [433 31 100 22];
% Create Button2
app.Button2 = uibutton(app.UIFigure, 'push');
app.Button2.Position = [30 31 100 22];
app.Button2.Text = 'Button2';
% Create Button3
app.Button3 = uibutton(app.UIFigure, 'push');
app.Button3.Position = [17 161 100 22];
app.Button3.Text = 'Button3';
% Create Button4
app.Button4 = uibutton(app.UIFigure, 'push');
app.Button4.Position = [17 293 100 22];
app.Button4.Text = 'Button4';
% Create Button5
app.Button5 = uibutton(app.UIFigure, 'push');
app.Button5.Position = [17 416 100 22];
app.Button5.Text = 'Button5';
% Create Button6
app.Button6 = uibutton(app.UIFigure, 'push');
app.Button6.Position = [433 141 100 22];
app.Button6.Text = 'Button6';
% Create Button7
app.Button7 = uibutton(app.UIFigure, 'push');
app.Button7.Position = [433 273 100 22];
app.Button7.Text = 'Button7';
% Create Button8
app.Button8 = uibutton(app.UIFigure, 'push');
app.Button8.Position = [415 416 100 22];
app.Button8.Text = 'Button8';
% Show the figure after all components are created
app.UIFigure.Visible = 'on';
end
end
% App creation and deletion
methods (Access = public)
% Construct app
function app = app1
% Create UIFigure and components
createComponents(app)
% Register the app with App Designer
registerApp(app, app.UIFigure)
% Execute the startup function
runStartupFcn(app, @StartUp)
if nargout == 0
clear app
end
end
% Code that executes before app deletion
function delete(app)
% Delete UIFigure when app is deleted
delete(app.UIFigure)
end
end
end