Upgrade to Windows 7

[Andrew1]

I recently had to upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7. Big mistake on a couple of fronts but in particular, the text on my screen is now blurry to the point that you can't look at it for very long. Black letters on a white background is poor and white letters on a dark background is even worse. The general blurriness and the chromatic aberrations promptly instill focusing problems and headaches.

Searching on the internet shows these problems are widespread and have been around for a few years. The cause is traceable to Microsoft's formatting for their software to primarily be used on tablets. Microsoft is certainly not interested in correcting the problem by offering code level options and simply fall back on setup suggestions that do not work for the majority. Software experts who are far more knowledgeable than I have tried to provide work-arounds for the problems but all have met with limited success.

I've tried about a dozen configuration changes that have been suggested on-line from frequency changes to anti-aliasing to font substitutions. Some helped but so far nothing provided the results that come close to the pre-upgrade presentation.

Graphics too have been negatively effected by the OS change. Some instances more than others which is attributable to the method of formatting and construction. From what I can tell my photographs have not been negatively effected. That being said however, if the manner in which the OS feeds the graphics card has been changed I have to believe that there must be an impact there as well. I might not be able to specifically point to a problem with some existing photos but I wonder whether future sharpening actions will be impacted.

I tried talking to an acquaintance at work about it who I know spends a lot of time on-line with some of it being photography but his display is a POS so he probably wouldn't have noticed a change one way or the other. I just want to find out if anyone here ran into a similar problem and if yes, what you did about it. Conversely, if you noticed no applicable change when upgrading to 7 or 8, what graphics card are you running? Perhaps a change there may make it better.

I'd like to get to the bottom of this and get it fixed as moving to an apple is not an option.

My thanks for any input you can offer.

[proseak]

Does Device Manager help at all? My first thought is to check the driver for the garphics card...

[FootLoose]

Andrew, I bought a new computer last year and I had windows 7 installed on it, but I have none of the problems you mention. I have an Nvidia card running 23" AOC IPS monitor.

[paldon]

Did you do a clean install or upgrade on top of the XP

[Manfred M]

Very strange indeed. I run XP, Windows 7 and 8.1 on a number of different machines, and have never seen any of these issues. If anything, the general consensus is that Win 7 is superior to XP.

By the way it it not a tablet OS; that would be Win 8. The issue one the font could be to ClearType not having been set up. If that is not done, one can see the issues with the fonts (I think this was an XP issue as well, if I remember correctly). You should be able to access this through the control panel.

[Andrew1]

Windows 7 was a clean install from a reputable computer store. Once I recognized the problem and researched the solutions I did the easiest which were in order, switch to native resolution, confirm/update drivers, confirmed W7 Clear Type and anti-ailiasing. MicroSoft also changed the font for 7 from Tahoma/New York to the Segoe family which I've removed and defaulted within msconfig. Everything in my system comes up fine on the Microsoft Upgrade Advisor so the incompatibility is not something major. Many people have the problem and if it was something obvious one of the gurus would have picked it up by now.

By the end of my first post I could feel my eyeballs tightening up just reading a few chapters and again, the green and red aberrations on the white text worse than any display photo I've ever seen. Spending hours on reddit is out of the question.

I already have a more than adequate graphics card and monitor but if I have to make changes I will. I would of course like to be able to try them ahead of time but I don't have the contacts that would permit me to do that.

If I come up with anything in the way of an improvement I will pass it along. Thanks for the input.

[Colin Southern]

From someone who does this for a living, the first and only thing that comes to mind is that you're not running your monitor at the correct resolution; CRT monitors could vary their scan rate, but LCD screens have a fixed number of pixels and when it's expecting something like 1920 x 1080 and you feed it 1600 x 900 it has to try and scale 1920 to fit in 1600 (and 1080 into 900 etc) which doesn't fit exactly - giving EXACTLY what you describe.

What make & model of monitor are you using, and what resolution are you running at?

[Andrew1]

You are correct in that it looks like a wrong resolution. Every character has the cyan and purple aberration so my screen looks like a damned rainbow and that's combined with the aliasing that makes non-vertical lines like A, V, W look grey instead of black. Bolded characters such as those across the top of this page, Home, Forum, Latest Threads are much worse. Bolded letters are so fuzzy there is no black between them. As I indicated earlier the basics like native resolution was among the first things to try. (1680 x 1050) While there was some change as I stepped through the 12 resolutions I have available, none came even close to being as black or clear as what I had. I am quite familiar with setting up my display which I did again a couple of days ago to confirm the setting. Also the before and after results presented by ColorMunki calibration are negligible.

Manfred also corrected my earlier statement about the tablet. This problem did start with 7. I did read what someone believed the initial cause to be but frankly I've read so much in the last week that I forget what it was. However, people who have been having this same problem included W8 but I have no experience with that so cannot comment. If you would like further info do a search for "windows 7 blurry" and you will some of the activity trying to correct this going back to its release.

By the way, one of the reasons for the upgrade was to move off of Lightroom 3. LR5 was ordered earlier today so I hope to get this resolved before it arrives.

Appreciate your input.

[Colin Southern]

You are correct in that it looks like a wrong resolution. Every character has the cyan and purple aberration so my screen looks like a damned rainbow and that's combined with the aliasing that makes non-vertical lines like A, V, W look grey instead of black. Bolded characters such as those across the top of this page, Home, Forum, Latest Threads are much worse. Bolded letters are so fuzzy there is no black between them. As I indicated earlier the basics like native resolution was among the first things to try. (1680 x 1050) While there was some change as I stepped through the 12 resolutions I have available, none came even close to being as black or clear as what I had. I am quite familiar with setting up my display which I did again a couple of days ago to confirm the setting. Also the before and after results presented by ColorMunki calibration are negligible.

Manfred also corrected my earlier statement about the tablet. This problem did start with 7. I did read what someone believed the initial cause to be but frankly I've read so much in the last week that I forget what it was. However, people who have been having this same problem included W8 but I have no experience with that so cannot comment. If you would like further info do a search for "windows 7 blurry" and you will some of the activity trying to correct this going back to its release.

By the way, one of the reasons for the upgrade was to move off of Lightroom 3. LR5 was ordered earlier today so I hope to get this resolved before it arrives.

Appreciate your input.

Sorry, doesn't look like I can help much. The only other quality issues I've come across have been due to other factors like excessive cable length due to extenders etc.

Is it an option to get a good PC repair place to have a look at it?

[John 2]

One thought occurs to me. If your MB has integrated graphics on board, try a set up without your graphics card (or swap out the card if that's an option). That will at least eliminate any problem with the card. Nothing much else I can add except to say that I have W7 running on 4 family machines with different monitor types, all of which were upgraded in the way you describe and if anything, with an increase in quality. Compared with XP, W7 has much better self diagnostics and if they are not throwing anything up, it could be a hardware problem (comment from forum experts???).

[Colin Southern]

One thought occurs to me. If your MB has integrated graphics on board, try a set up without your graphics card (or swap out the card if that's an option). That will at least eliminate any problem with the card.

That would be the next thing I'd try too.

My guess is that it's probably just a weird graphics card incompatibility with the OS. It's certainly not a common Win 7 issue - I've installed Win 7 on hundreds of PCs and have never come across this; usually the worst that happens is one has to find the correct (or a compatible) driver.

I take it that in addition to the resolution being correct, that the refresh rate is also correct? No messages from the monitor to say "for optimal display use blah blah blah"?

[tao2]

Hi Andrew,

Try "appearance"

hit start -type in "appearance" - click "adjust appearance + performance of Windows" - uncheck "smooth edges of fonts".
Does this happen in Windows and the web or just the web?
Have ye been inside the PC? If so, go back and check that the graphics card is properly seated (remove it completely then replace). In fact, if it's been in a repair shop, ah'd do that check anyway.
Ye can try running without Aero - if that's acceptable. That's about all, off the top of my head. Ah'll have a look in my Win bookmarks.

PS ye using DVI or VGA cable?

[DanK]

Andrew,

This is probably no consolation, but I'd give you a wager at long odds that the problem is one with your configuration, not with Windows 7. I have had Windows 7 on 6 computers, including the two I have used for photo editing, without this problem. Windows 7 is standard in our university--it seems that we are skipping Windows 8--so I have sat in front of scores of monitors running Windows 7, and they look fine.

The only time I have seen what you described is the circumstance that Colin described: a video setting forcing a monitor to run at other than its native resolution. You have already checked the resolutions your card is offering you. the only additional thing I can suggest on this front is to find out the native resolution of your monitor and see whether it is one of the resolutions your card is offering when you open up the screen resolution dialog box. Also, check (you probably have) whether the "display" dropdown box in the screen resolution dialog is correctly displaying the model of your monitor. If it isn't, Windows is not recognizing the monitor and the card may not be offering the right resolution.

Broad, re this suggestion:

hit start -type in "appearance" - click "adjust appearance + performance of Windows" - uncheck "smooth edges of fonts".

In my experience, there is no need to do this. My displays are set to "let windows choose," and "smooth edges of screen fonts" is checked.

Good luck.

Dan

[Andrew1]

Thanks all. Graphics card is up to date and separate. Edges in Appearance was one of the early suggestions from Microsoft's responses to the problem all have which been tried. The native resolution is offered and specifically recommended.

I think I have pretty much covered all the soft options. I will try reseating the boards Bob but as this is the only problem I'm finding I can't expect it to be a connection related fault but then again I've seen some pretty strange stuff over the years.

Time to go after the h/w. It won't be the screen itself but I'll step through piece by piece from interface to motherboard and see what happens. If I come up with anything major I'll certainly pass it on.

Ta again.

[PaoloMtl]

Time to go after the h/w.

Sorry to hear about your problem Andrew. I found an article that describes the origin...
http://www.infoworld.com/t/microsoft...ndows-7-231035

There's a link in the article to an MS KB article that lists a bunch of affected graphics cards. Based on what I read there seems to be potential for driver incompatibility. Try John's suggestion if you have another graphics card. If not boot to safe mode, where the display driver shouldn't load. You'll be in a low resolution but may be able to gauge if the problem is still present. If it isn't then it's likely the driver. Clean out your drivers completely (search google for "full uninstall of xxxx drivers") and try installing some new ones (you can always try older ones too). The uninstall routine that comes with drivers don't always rip out everything (some do), so installing over them can sometimes just perpetuate the same issues.

And while it's likely not your cable, I'd definitely check especially if your using a VGA connection. Cables go, don't ask me how, but I've seen it several times.

Best of luck in finding a solution.

[Black Pearl]

Take a screen shot and post it - leave it at full resolution (1680 x 1050) so we can see your issue.

[pnodrog]

Take a screen shot and post it - leave it at full resolution (1680 x 1050) so we can see your issue.

If you use "Print Screen" also take photograph. There is a good chance that "Print Screen" will pick up the screen image data before your display problem.

[Black Pearl]

See if I've got this the right way round:

If Print Screen picks it up then it is a software/driver error.
If Print Screen doesn't then it is a monitor issue.

Either way it might help narrow thing down.

It is an odd one because coincidentally our IT department at work have finally got round to upgrading out ancient systems from XP to W7 (they give us a bit more RAM but otherwise we're running it on the same old base stations) as some new software we're about to launch won't run on XP. All that aside there's no difference to the type/text etc which all looks just as sharp, if not better as the install almost certainly included newer graphics drivers.