Looking at the screen in Windows 8 hurts my eyes [closed]

So I upgraded to Windows 8 on my laptop, and I noticed that it hurts my eyes when I look at the screen.

I am not sure what it is, maybe the font/Cleartype but I cannot focus on looking at the screen for more than a few seconds before my eyes start to hurt and I get a headache. It seems that is not as clear/crisp as it was on Windows 7.

Anyone else experiencing this problem? If so, how did you fix it?

I checked my screen resolution, refresh rate, calibrated my display but still it hurts. I also have the drivers for my graphics card (HP DV6 with switchable graphics).

It feels like its very bright. In Windows 7 I had my brightness set to highest on my laptop and it was fine, but on Windows 8 I turned my brightness down to 80% and it still hurts my eyes really bad. I even asked my dad to quickly look at my screen, and it hurt his eyes too, even when just looking at it for a few seconds.

Solution 1:

This might sound stupid, but it's what I'd try:

Take a screen shot from both systems, ideally the same web page, then view the screen shots at 100% on each other system. i.e.:

Windows 8 shot viewed on Windows 7
Windows 7 shot viewed on Windows 8

Does the windows 8 shot still hurt eyes when viewed from windows 7? If not, it might be graphics driver settings like brightness and contrast rather than how the page fonts were rendered by the OS.

You can also now compare the shots side by side to see what exactly is causing the problem.

Solution 2:

Windows 8 did get rid of the soft blend coloring in favor of sharp, bold, clear lines.

Maybe that could be what is affecting your eyes. You are simply not used to looking at that kind of color and your eyes have taken the softness of Windows 7 for granted.

Couple things you can try:

If the text is bothering you, Run the ClearType text wizard at control panel -> Appearance and Personalization -> Display -> Adjust Cleartype Text

see if that helps. failing that, try different themes and window colors and see if anything seems less harsh to you.

How the screen affects your eyes is largely subjective so you will probably just have to fiddle with it until you find what works best for you.

Solution 3:

You can install f.lux and see if it helps you. I believe it will.

f.lux makes the color of your computer's display adapt to the time of day, warm at night and like sunlight during the day. f.lux makes your computer look better.

I think that f.lux, by making the screen warmer and softer, will help you with the brightness issue you've mentioned, and make the screen a lot less painful to your eyes.

While there is no information about support for Windows 8, it seems that there is no problem running f.lux on Windows 8.

Another method that might help you with the contrast in Windows 8, is enabling AeroLite.

Although Aero is gone, there is a way to invoke an alternate Aero implementation provided by Microsoft in the Windows 8 release called AeroLite.

It does not bring back the old Aero Glass. Transparency is really, really gone. But it does bring back a bit of additional contrast, improving ability to differentiate windows from one another and it makes things more readable overall. It really should make Windows 8 more usable.

Here's how to activate AeroLite:

Right-click on your desktop and choose Personalize.
In the My Themes section, click the Save theme link, and save your theme as something like
MyName Aero Lite.
Open a Windows File Explorer window and navigate to the folder %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Themes.
Open the .theme file you just created in a text editor (e.g NotePad or WordPad).
Find the string Path=%SystemRoot%\resources\themes\Aero\Aero.msstyles (near the bottom) and change it to: Path=%SystemRoot%\resources\themes\Aero\AeroLite.msstyles.
Save the file, close the editor, right-click on the desktop again, and choose Personalize.
Choose the style you just saved.

^{A guide with screenshots & video can be found here.}