Update from Win11 21H2 to Win11 22H2 leads to eye strain

machala The restore point thing has never worked for me. It has always incurred errors and left the system unstable, so I dropped it. Instead I used the Control Panel to uninstall all the updates until the OS would return to the last good version and build. However, this has stopped working too and I haven been in pain for the past few months even with 21H2 and a build that used to be good. What has irreversibly changed is the OS Experience. I think that's due to the service stacking updates that cannot be uninstalled, at least via the Control Panel. I tried to find out what a service stacking update effectively does, but I couldn't learn anything from the web.

One last note about the restore point. There's a functionally that allows to check all that has changed between OS as per restore point and OS post-security updates/service stacking updates. I ran the check once and the list of all the edits to the system was infinitely long, including drivers.
Unfortunately I cannot wipe everything off and reinstall Windows as it is a business laptop and I am already "illegally" downgrading updates for what is possible.

AGI However, this has stopped working too and I haven been in pain for the past few months even with 21H2 and a build that used to be good.

@machala These have been the last decent settings for me.
OS build 19044.1889
Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.4180.0

The service stacking updated twice since, and I have never been able to cope.
Right now I am on

Version 21H2
OS build 19044.1889
Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.19041.1000.0

and it is hell.

machala

Intel(R) UHD Graphics
NVIDIA Quadro P520

BIOS Mode UEFI
BaseBoard Manufacturer HP
BaseBoard Product 8724

CPU Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10810U 1.10GHz

Moe3224 Drivers also autoupdate separately and are difficult to disable in newer versions of Windows. Maybe this .reg key will help:

reg add "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\DriverSearching" /v "SearchOrderConfig" /t REG_DWORD /d "0" /f

reg add "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\DriverSearching" /v "DontSearchWindowsUpdate" /t REG_DWORD /d "1" /f

reg add "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\DriverSearching" /v "DriverUpdateWizardWuSearchEnabled" /t REG_DWORD /d "0" /f

reg add "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\PolicyManager\current\device\Update" /v "ExcludeWUDriversInQualityUpdate" /t REG_DWORD /d "1" /f

reg add "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\PolicyManager\default\device\Update" /v "ExcludeWUDriversInQualityUpdate" /t REG_DWORD /d "1" /f

reg add "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\WindowsUpdate\UX\Settings" /v "ExcludeWUDriversInQualityUpdate" /t REG_DWORD /d "1" /f

reg add "HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate" /v "ExcludeWUDriversInQualityUpdate" /t REG_DWORD /d "1" /f

AGI A couple of questions. I noticed that the IT staff did not bother updating the BIOS version and that there is a firmware update pending. Any chance updating everything may make the screen smoother?
Is PWM directly/indirectly affected by OS updates or is solely an hardware parameter? Thanks.

Sucks that you got called in, though it was pretty inevitable. At least it took awhile.

Yes, it is entirely possible that a firmware update may make the screen smoother, I have observed this with an old video card. My opinion, given that you're suffering already and going back isn't an option anymore you might as well try it and see how it goes. It's not going to be worse at this point and might be better. You won't be able to roll-back though.

However, before doing that, there is something you can try.. try f-lux or night light and make the screen orangey-reddish, also at the same time, turn on greyscale-mode in the windows settings colour filters.. that should give you a warm white point without any other colours. See if doing that first helps make it more comfortable. Night light is built into Windows, I think f-lux's tonal balance is better. In lieu of using either, you can also go into the video driver settings and just simply lower the G and B sliders and it will do the same thing (but still also turn on greyscale). The theory here is that maybe you're being oversaturated.

PWM is both. It can be off in hardware but turned on by software. Sometimes it's other stuff, for example In linux kernel 6.6 for Intel, they're going to turn on panel self-refresh. It was off for many years because it was so buggy it couldn't be used, only in Windows. Will be interesting to see how that goes.

That reminds me, if your screen is PWM, if at 100% it is too bright but lowering it causes PWM, one way you can work around that is leave it at 100% but again, go into the video driver properties and lower the R G B sliders, say to 50%.. this will 'dim' the screen, but the backlight will still be at 100%, presumably not as much PWM but not so glaring.

Hey - perhaps not very pertinent to this thread and perhaps the nth red herring, I removed my Ocushield screen protector and it seems that my eyestrain has significantly diminished. I wonder if the problem is that the protector, which I bought solely to block the blue light and stop the glare, is also a privacy filter. This last feature appears to give more problems than benefits, as I cannot even see the edge of the screen neatly without shifting my head! Has anyone experienced the same?

AGI Try Win 10 Pro 21h2 19044.1288 build.