Is it still possible to to prevent auto updates on Windows 10 LTSB 2015 on XPS 13? Also, Which intel graphics driver is recommended for this device?

After following this forum for a while, I purchased a used XPS 13 9343 (2015) wiped with no operating system, and separatley bought Win10 ENT LTSB 2015 key/ISO off ebay. I booted windows to the device from USB and before establishing an internet connection selected "defer upgrades" and "notify to schedule restart" under the advanced options in windows update. Dissapointingly, after a couple reboots the computer had automatically downloaded and installed a slew of 2018 updates. Does anyone know another way to turn off updates?

As for the graphics driver, after the device auto updated to the 2018 version, I attempted to install 20.19.15.4483 but got the "not meet minimum requirments" window. Does anyone know another old driver that will work on this device?

I'm tempted to try Win 7 or linux. Currently it burns my eyes out within 5 min, but want to give it a fair trial in the correct software configuration before writing it off... and trying something else.

I appeciate all the work that has been done on this forum and would appreciate any suggestion!

  • KM replied to this.

    I honestly don't know what to tell you. The 2015 XPS13 (assuming you have the 1080p infinity edge matte screen, not the glossy one) should be ROCK solid on the first release of Windows 10. I don't have it here at work, but when I get home I can see which Intel driver I'm using, and see if I still have the installer.

    LTSB will, by the way, get lots of updates... just none that bump up the revision level of the system. I haven't updated mine in a WHILE, I hope that they didn't sneak whatever breaks the screen into a "security" update. 🙁

      Gurm and KM, thank you for the quick responses!

      KM: In the next couple days I'll reload windows clean to 1507 and insert the group policy, find an older graphics driver that works on 10, and get ditherig.exe running.

      Gurm: From what you said I underetand the security updates will not affect the rendering, so long as the edition is still listed as 1507. That's good to know. I'll update when I get everything running-- probably will take a few days to a week before I get to it. Thanks again!

      I'm also interested in an XPS13/15 - am I right in thinking that there is no dithering with ditherig.exe running even with the dual Nvidia graphics?

        diop Ditherig only affects Intel graphics. The only problem with using ditherig is that on some (maybe most) laptops, dithering is required to see all 8 bit colors

          Gurm

          1. If you use ditherig, on your Dell XPS, do you see banding? I am wondering if there are laptops with high-quality screens that don't need dithering to display 8-bit color.

          2. The Galaxy S9 has a slow-motion camera. Probably not enough FPS for our needs, but worth trying to capture some computer/smartphone screens if you were trying the phone anyway.

          • Gurm replied to this.

              ryans Honestly, you'd THINK that ditherig would wreck colors, right? But honestly it doesn't, in my experience. I forget it's even running.

                  JTL I read somewhere that TN panels basically always have to use dithering (and are thus faster in response time), whereas many IPS panels do not.

                  @Gurm So I think we can conclude that Dell XPS screens don't need dithering to display all colors?

                  • JTL replied to this.

                      ryans I thought all laptops that had IPS panels used dithering still (with the exception of some known HP Elitebook's that supposedly do 8+2 bit FRC to do 10-bit color depth.)

                        9 days later

                        Gurm Can you post a picture with and without dithering running on your Dell XPS laptop?

                          6 months later

                          Hey,

                          @Gurm

                          do you just use the laptops panel or do you also have an external monitor?

                          The laptop panel, although I have plugged it into the monitor with similar results.

                          2 months later

                          Hi, testing old XPS 9550 fullhd.

                          Dithering.exe does not show any difference. Am I doing something wrong?
                          Old Windows 10 with old drivers seems a bit more usable,.. but still bad.

                          What makes screen look better — disabling both Nvidia and specially Intel drivers.
                          But with drivers disabled I can't control screen brightness anymore.

                          Overlay screen dimmers kind-of help, but ignore pop-ups, which makes them not an option.
                          Does anybody have an idea how to control brightness with dedicated drivers disabled?

                            It's been REALLY hit or miss for me with XPS 15's. There seem to be multiple iterations of the hardware, and some are much better than others.

                            a year later

                            poliakov Just to chip in with my experience - my most comfortable setup which I can use for hours at a time is the XPS 15 9560, Windows 10 ver 1511 with Intel & Nvidia graphics disabled in Device Manager. I find that for most tasks this works absolutely fine and is a great relief for me as I was starting to struggle to find any system I could use day to day.

                            The two major drawbacks are:

                            • you can't change the screen brightness, as you said. This is tied to the Intel driver. The workaround is to enable the Intel driver, chenge the brightness and then disable again. Fiddly I know, but actually I prefer the brightness down very low at all times anyways.
                            • the HDMI out doesn't work. Again this is driven by these drivers, so when I'm presenting I have to enable the drivers temporarily. Incidentally, there have been times when I have forgotten to disable them again but this has provided a perfect testing scenario as I have developed a migraine unaware that the drivers are currently enabled, thus concluding that this definitely is the route of the issue.

                            With this in mind - I feel like I personally have a setup which would be ideal for testing purposes by someone at Intel as I have a known working- and non-working setup, but I can't live without my laptop (especially in lockdown!).

                            Anyways, just thought I'd update with where I'm at with all this. Glad to have a working system that is fine for my temporal dithering sensitivity.

                              I think I'm almost OK with this machine after some tune here and there. And I'm using all latest drivers ON and latest windows update also.

                              1) Use ONLY native screen resolution and no UI scaling (are we speaking about HD version here?)
                              2) Turn off Clear Type
                              3) Never use Chrome, Firefox or Edge (give me strain in any case). I'm fine with Vivaldi and Opera browsers
                              4) Never use dark theme.
                              5) Never use plain wallpaper, use bright detailed photo instead
                              6) Never go to bottom 30% of brightness range — this is where PWM starts to work
                              7) Never use keyboard backlight. Even worse PWM.
                              8) Play with color profiles/video settings to reduce contrast a bit and maybe add some yellow tint (but not with windows night light, use dell utilities).

                              May sound like nothing big, but it went from heavy strain to usable for me this way.

                              And any use of HDMI cable gives me severe problems anyway.

                                poliakov That's very interesting - thanks for the detailed post. Just to confirm, would you say you believe your primary issue to be temporal dithering or PWM? And yes I'm on the FHD matte version), but using ClearType, Chrome, backlight and brightness minimized is fine as long as I have the drivers disabled and using Windows 1511.

                                poliakov any case). I'm fine with Vivaldi and Opera browsers
                                4) Never use dark theme.
                                5) Never use plain wallpaper, use bright detailed photo instead
                                6) Never go to bottom 30% of brightness range — this is where PWM starts to work
                                7) Never use keyboard backlight. Even worse PWM.
                                8) Play with color profiles/video settings to reduce contrast a bit and maybe add some yellow tint (but not with windows night light, use dell utilities).

                                    dev