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  • Windows 10 Anniversary Edition

That would be a good thought - if we were talking about laptops. Adaptive Brightness is never enabled on desktops with no light sensors...

12 days later

I recently installed a pre-anniversary windows 10 (version 1507 build number 10240.16384) on a new desktop alongside a windows 7. So dual OS on the same machine. I cannot use the windows 10 for over 10 minutes while the windows 7 works just fine. Not sure what is going on.

  • Gurm replied to this.
    7 days later

    Jerry Windows 10 is always going to be inferior. Things to try:

    1. Make sure the ICC color profile is right. This matters a LOT.
    2. Make sure you're using good drivers. You didn't say what video card you have, but the Windows 10 version of, for example, Intel Integrated drivers is BAD. I purposely downgrade it to a mid-2015 level.

        Gurm I see. I will double check to make sure the ICC color profile is right. I am using the nvidia GeForce GT 730 card. Maybe I need downgrade the driver too.

        • diop replied to this.

            Card driver shouldn't be an issue for that card.

            Jerry I've just purchased a basic Acer desktop with a GT730 installed and W10 Home Premium - It's unusable.

            I decided to install a copy of W7 and intentionally looked for an early driver which supports this card (circa 2014).

            After considerable time on this machine I'm having no luck. There is visible dithering/flickering of some sort happening. The contrast/white levels, even on Windows 7 just seem more 'harsh white' than my 2009 Intel GMA HD machine. I've downloaded a display profile for my display (Dell U2414h) and while it made a difference in the colour balance, didn't change the flickering/harshness of the screen.

            They've also blocked the extra HDMI ports on the motherboard, so I'm assuming only the discrete graphics will work on this PC.

            Jerry, did you find a driver for Windows 7 that works for you?

                diop My driver version is "361.43-desktop-win8-win7-winvista-64bit-international-whql". It works fine for me. I downloaded it a few months ago from nVidia. You can easily find a download link thru google. Try it. The cable I am currently using is dvi-to-dvi. Not sure if HDMI will make a difference.

                I have not yet got a chance to retest the pre-anniversary windows 10 per Gurm's suggestion. Hopefully this weekend.

                  Pre-anniversary Windows 10 is definitely... worse... than Windows 7. But not unusable ... for me. Might be for you.

                  2 months later

                  Not sure what happened, but yesterday I used my Windows 10 LTSB 2015 for some time after some new upgrades had been installed, and afterwards I was pretty much dead the whole day. When I woke up, I had headaches and my eyes were dry and hurt.

                  15 days later

                  KM, I was afraid that would happen. Even in the LTSB they are sneaking in whatever changes they made to support composition spaces and the creator's update. 🙁

                  3 months later

                  With Windows 7 support ending in 2020, and many of us ok under Windows 7 but not Windows 10 1607 and later. I've been thinking, may Windows 8.1 be OK to get some us by to 2023 (This case Microsoft doesn't fix Windows 10 by Windows 7 support end date)? I realize this doesn't help any of you at work but maybe for home users it might be worth looking at. I'm going to give it a shot myself because I am worried that MS will not fix this issue, and security updates until 2023 would be amazing.

                  I'll report my results in a few weeks.

                  • diop replied to this.

                    degen
                    IIRC you should be able to use Win7 drivers in Win8 without any problems.

                    It seems the colour reproduction is 'off' in Windows 10 - it seems ever so slightly whiter than the usual milky white in Windows 7 and previous versions. In my work using Excel for approx 8 hours a day, switching from a W10 system to W7 was night and day difference. The black text and white contrast is much softer, maybe W10 renders fonts differently but the black on white is much more intense.

                    Hopefully by the time 2020 comes around new display types will start coming through. Until then in theory with more and more people using these problem devices, complaints due to dithering/PWM etc should gain ground.

                        diop I don't think the display type has anything to do with it. It's whats driving the display.

                        Given the massive Windows 7 install base and the utterly disastrous rollout of Windows 8, I think MSFT will push Win 7 support longer than 2020. If not, I'll just go on using it unsupported.

                          I noticed that legit licenses are back up for sale on Newegg for Windows 7 for $140 - $150. Last time I checked a few months ago they were basically sold out (I thought permanently) and if you wanted one you needed to spend $500+. Windows 8.1 on there as well.

                            degen You can buy Win7 on Amazon for $80. You can downloadable license keys and ISO's for around $20 at various places online as well

                              If a new laptop comes with the latest Windows 10 version pre-installed, how does one "downgrade" to earlier versions?

                              I plan to downgrade or install version 1511 (or below), but not sure how do do this. Can I just download a new ISO or simply re-install Windows 10 from scratch? Would that install the first version of Windows 10, and I just download and install the updates from there? Or if I download Windows 10 from Microsoft's website, it will automatically comes with the latest version already, so there is no way to downgrade?

                                Kray You can download any version of Windows, direct from MSFT, using these tools: https://forums.mydigitallife.net/threads/techbench-unlocked-download-all-msdn-isos-direct-from-msft.72165/

                                @mkuba50's Techbench DUMP is working best right now.

                                Looks like MSFT refreshed Threshold 2 (build 1511) ISO in April 2016.

                                End of life for build 1511 was apparently October 2017 (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/13853/windows-lifecycle-fact-sheet) however as of November 2 they are still issuing updates to it (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4052232).

                                If you laptop came new with a new build, you won't be able to downgrade to 1511, however you could clean install 1511.

                                However, I don't know enough about how licensing works to know if you will be able to activate it using your original license.

                                    9 days later

                                    Kray Wipe and install Win 7 fresh. If you are using an upgrade/downgrade copy you just need to insert the media during install, not actually have it installed

                                      3 months later

                                      I've been playing around with disabling desktop composition in Windows 7 to see if it affects my eyestrain at all (it is forced to always on in Windows 8 and higher), and one thing I noticed was that with it disabled scrolling in any browser and especially with smooth scrolling enabled becomes an absolute disaster with horizontal lines, screen shaking and jittery.

                                      Despite reading I still fundamentally do not understand what a window manager or desktop composition is or how it could have these effects.

                                      • KM replied to this.
                                        dev