Lenovo T480 - Yes, Win10 1809 downgrade matters just like others say here

Sunspark

You don't have to format the drive.

Just make a partition of minimum 64 gigs from the free space (you can shrink the existing partition).

Then use Rufus to put the ISO on a USB drive to do the clean install from and select that empty partition you made as the install destination (not entire drive, but the new partition of size 64GB or whatever size you wanted.)

When booting, you will have a choice of partitions to boot from.

PS. I personally use build 19042.

Jack

cooldudz Yes they are genuine Microsoft ISO's. I cannot advise here about the license keys but read more on the massgrave.dev site and the solution can be found there as well. 😉

cooldudz

holy cow! My dumbass was finally able to install Windows 10 1809 and you guys were all right!! This is honestly life changing. I can't believe how much of a difference this is from Windows 11. Really blows my mind. Everyone who said software matters was right. It's not just PWM, flicker from hardware, etc. The OS truly does matter. Text looks super clean and flat. No more of that disorientating, pseudo-3d effect that windows 11 gives where everything looks blurry no matter how much you tinker with settings/drivers/etc.

Reinhard62

cooldudz

It was the same with me. After using Windows 11 for two or three months my eyesight got worse and worse.

I tried ditherig.exe and all the other things that are recommended here. Nothing helped. Windows 11 was "stronger".

I switched back to Windows 10 and after a few weeks my eyesight got better again.

WINDOWS 11 IS A HEALTH HAZARD. MICROSOFT SHOULD BE SUED FOR RELEASING THIS.

Aquila

cooldudz Absolutely, I'm a big fan of 1809 on ledeyestrain group on TG .
It's the gold standard for evey safe build.

I need to investigate if the Win 10 1809 (17763.1098) (updates blocked) and Win 10 LTSC 2019 (based on 1809) are equally confortable .

Staycalmsyndrome

Reinhard62 "In 2014-2015, Microsoft underwent significant restructuring, including layoffs that impacted its Windows testing teams. While not a complete elimination of all testing functions, a large portion of the dedicated testing team, particularly those focused on hardware-specific testing, was laid off as Microsoft shifted testing to virtual machines and relied more on developers for testing.
This change in approach has been cited by some as a potential contributor to the increased number of bugs in Windows updates following the layoffs, though other factors like user error and driver issues are also mentioned."

I guess virtual machines don't have eye strain.

Sunspark

Microsoft is just going to get worse as time goes on.. you must have noticed the news about them laying off thousands of employees along with new applications for thousands of H-1B visas from India to replace them.

JTL

Sunspark Not to get too political, but a certain former Microsoft engineer involved with internal development and QA for Windows made a well known video after getting laid off which he predicted that quality assurance of products would get worse under new management regimes. Even ignoring the possible context to this obscure issue I think it's endemic to the industry at this point.

That video was in 2014.

Reinhard62

Aquila

I have very sensible eyes and I am on version 21H2 Io LTSC. For me it's perfect. No strain whatsoever.

I allow updates and I use the newest graphic drivers (AMD).

simplex

Reinhard62 I am on version 21H2 Io LTSC

It better to know, what hardware (motherboard, CPU, grapfic card, monitor) you use with 21h2

Reinhard62

simplex

Lenovo T16, AMd Ryzen 6850 U, Radeon Graphics = PWM free

My experience is: Hardware (i.e. the display) can work with pwm or not. But dithering is dependent on the software you use.

I have awful dithering with Windows 11, none with Windows 10.

simplex

Reinhard62

iGPU amd 680m without issues?

Reinhard62

simplex

Yes, it's pwm free.

Sunspark

19042 works for me on Intel iGPU.

reaganry

this should be pinned

reaganry

per chatgpt..

Version	Notable Triggers
1903	"Light theme" animations, acrylic blur by default
2004	Hardware-accelerated window management and cursor motion
20H2+	UI layering and background task interruptions increased
21H2–22H2	Fluent Design baked into the shell, can't fully disable animations
Win 11	Full compositor-based UI, with non-disableable animations, rounded corners, inconsistent frame pacing, and forced vsync

cooldudz

reaganry anything it gave you on 1809?

Also what did you prompt it with? This is pretty cool that it was able to give you details like this.

reaganry

mainly "what happened after 1809" with some background on symptoms. it calls it "vestibular" problems.

1809 did not fully offload the desktop environment to the GPU.
Starting with 2004 and later, Microsoft pushed hardware acceleration for UI rendering more aggressively—often causing "wobble," tearing, or micro-stutter on even modest movements.

Post-1809, there were updates to DWM (Desktop Window Manager) and Compositor timing, introducing slight changes in how frames are buffered and drawn.

These can cause "invisible flicker" or microsaccadic-type visual noise, which vestibular systems pick up even if you don’t consciously see it.

cooldudz

reaganry interesting that it calls it "vestibular" problems, as my inability to tolerate screens happened after I slept at a weird angle for 3 days in a row and woke up a few days later to the stiffest neck I ever had (thought I had meningitis it was so stiff and painful and my head was killing me). Ever since then (3 years ago), I can't tolerate screens.

So for me I know it's tied to my neck and vestibular system.

reaganry

breaking the thread but it also recommends these linux setups

Distro	Why It's Good
Xubuntu / MX Linux	XFCE with zero animations, totally customizable
Peppermint OS	Hybrid LXDE+XFCE, smooth for older eyes
EndeavourOS with i3wm	No motion at all. Instant, no-flicker feel
Wayland + Sway	No screen tearing or jitter, full frame sync

reaganry

doublebreaking.. macOS Mavericks (2013) This was the point where Apple began GPU-accelerating more of the window manager. Both Apple and Microsoft replaced crisp, discrete movement with interpolated motion layers that look cool but can trigger visual-vestibular mismatch in sensitive people.

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