I’ve tried Windows 8 for a while and in the beginning I uninstalled it and went back to Windows 7 three times. Yes, I know there are virtual machines, but I actually thought it would be better. The last time I installed it, I promised my self (read “made a pact with the dev**”) to not uninstall it in favor for Windows 7, so I’m now waiting for Windows > 8.

I should probably say, I HAVE NOT TESTED IT IN ITS RIGHTFUL ENVIRONMENT LIKE ON TOUCH DEVICES, only on laptops and desktops. I also have a clean, non bloated manufacturer install. My computer right now is an ASUS Zenbook U500 (something) and in general I like it. Windows 8 though, well that’s another story. With its two UI’s and no start menu and…. well the classical negative opinions. But also THE AUTO ADAPTIVE SCREEN BRIGHTNESS THING. I’m not sure if Windows 8 is to be blamed on it’s own or if it’s an Windows 8 + computer specific issue or perhaps me; but in the end I blame Microsoft. It should not be possible to end up in this situation. A computer SHOULD NOT BE APPROVED FOR WINDOWS 8 IF IT DOESN’T WORK WITH A PURE WINDOWS 8 INSTALLATION AND BEHAVE CORRECLTY. ** (If you wonder what’s up with all the CAPS; well I’m a Visual Studio 2012 user, live with it or leave) **. So when installed with a clean Windows 8 installation; the WIFI and LAN should work and should connect to Winows Update and get all NEW drivers.

Back to the issue that made me flip. My screen adapts to the surroundings and adjusts its brightness to it, but something I could live with. But it’s not only adapting to the surroundings but apparently to the image/content being projected on the screen as well. So if I e.g visit http://web.tweetdeck.com and have the dark theme, it dims down and adopts colors etc. When I Alt + Tab (NO I don’t use any NIFTY THREE FINGER swipes or whatever it is) to something that is brighter, it looks all messed up, but after a while the screen adopts and shows correct intensity and colors again. Surely this can’t be to hard to fix? Right? So lets start fiddling a bit. Also, NO I DON’T WANT TO SET IT TO 100% SCREEN BRIGHTNESS.

Attempt 1 – Turn off Metro “Adjust my screen brightness automatically”

Using the NOT SO LOVELY START SCREEN I found the setting to turn it off. Did it work? Off course not!

Attempt 2 – Turn off Intel graphics image enhancement shit

So the laptop comes with two graphics card and Google Chrome is according to my NVIDIA settings, handled by the integrated graphics. So I opened up the Intel software and found some settings that might solve the issue, e.g

Media --> Image enhancement --> Adaptive contrast enhancement

Did it work? Off course not!

Attempt 3 – The Power options thingie

The next thing that come to my mind was to check the “Advanced options” for the power plan. I ensured that the settings where applied. AND AS AN OLD WINDOWS USER, I REBOOTED ONCE AGAIN.

So, did it work? Off course not!

Attempt 4 – Going nuts and turned to Google

No more ideas, except from digging in the registry, but before that I googled a bit (YES I JUST USED IT AS A VERB). Then I found some that had it fixed by disabling the “Sensor monitoring service”, which I do guess affects other sensors that I might have in my laptop, which I at this point gladly could live without.

THEN I REBOOTED AGAIN and mad the cross sign, but of course it still didn’t work.

Now I’m out of ideas. Guess I need to go hunting for some obscure setting in the registry. Again, not really sure who to blame, but I’m really tempted on braking my pact and trying Windows 7.

//Daniel