Windows 7 Laptop screen calibration

[singlespeed]

Since profiling my laptop screen a while ago, I have been plagued with the custom profile dropping out. This normaly happens just after the logging on, or anytime a the graphics card feels the need to re-assert itself or the laptop is taken into/out of power saving of any form . Having a good read, this appears to be a well known hang over from the useless Vista days, and not exclusively for laptops, where profiling a display became much more unreliable than XP.

For ages, i was re-booting the laptop to get it to reload the profile. Theres two ways, the first part here, being manual as required. The second way is using the Task Scheduler to re-start the tasks in Part 2


Part 1. (Manualy reloading the profile)
1. Firstly, open up the control panel and locate the 'Colour management' icon. (I have dragged a copy of this onto my desktop, as it is a regular requirement)

2. Open the 'Colour management' program and select the 'advanced' tab. Then select 'Change system defaults' (this opens another window)

3. Select the device drop down to show 'Display 1' . Hopefully your custom profile will be listed and shown as the default... if not, carry on, otherwise skip to 5.

4. to select the monitor profile, if it is already shown, but not the default, select it and then press the 'set as default button. otherwise click 'Add' and find your custom profile from the list, followed by selecting OK. Make sure your new profile is selected as the default.

5. Select the advanced tab and ensure the 'Use Windows display' is ticked.

6. With the tick in place and the profile set as default, click close. That is now the setup complete.

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7. When the profile drops out, open up the colour management program. select the advanced tab and click 'Reload current settings'. Close.


I also have a shortcut to the gamma loader saved on my desktop, as sometimes this needs a push in the right direction. For me with x-rite colour monkey, this was found >>> C:\Program Files\X-Rite\ColorMunki Photo\Gamma\Calibration Loader.exe.



I hope that helps, as I have pulled my hair out and, was even considering a Mac Now it is just a few clicks ro restore the profile as required.

 

[singlespeed]

Part 2.

Now you know how to manualy re-start your custom profile, you may decide not to bother with the next bit, as it is a bit of messing in the task scheduler. Delaying the start of the windows colour management and gamma loader untill (hopefully) the graphics card has finished loading. I decided on 45 seconds delay for the windows tasks (Numbered items), followed by 50 seconds for the new X-rite software (Lettered items)

1. Start the Task Scheduler, by typing 'Task' into the start menu search. 'Task Scheduler' should appear on the list.

2. Use the file tree on the left hand side to find 'WindowsColourSystem'. This then shows the current tasks that are scheduled in the center pane. Pressing properties will allow us to edit the task schedule.

Task scheduler set up by npurdie2003, on Flickr

3. On the 'triggers' page, you will probably have 1 or 2 entries to begin with ( the third line was added by me) Select the 'At log on' line and then edit.

Task scheduler set up by npurdie2003, on Flickr

4. From the drop down pick/edit a suitable time to clear your bootup. For me 45 seconds (or use a minute it your slow at booting up)

Task scheduler set up by npurdie2003, on Flickr

5. Edit the second trigger to look like this

Task scheduler set up by npurdie2003, on Flickr

6. Create the third trigger by selecting new (or edit yours if you have one). then make it look like this. when everything is finished, press 'OK'

Task scheduler set up by npurdie2003, on Flickr

7. To make sure the X-rite Colour Munki loader is running, I also created this new task. In the left hand file tree, select the top line. then in the right hand bar, select 'Create task'. Give it a suitable name and description

Task scheduler set up by npurdie2003, on Flickr

continued>>>

 

[singlespeed]

Part 2 continued

8. On the 'Actions' tab, create a new action. Which is going to be running a program.

Task scheduler set up by npurdie2003, on Flickr

9. Browse to the location of your CM device software and find the Gamma loader program.

Task scheduler set up by npurdie2003, on Flickr

9. The file location then shows like this.

Task scheduler set up by npurdie2003, on Flickr

10. The action now shows as starting our gamma loader program. Create the three triggers as previously shown (with a 50 second delay). That should be everything covered.

Task scheduler set up by npurdie2003, on Flickr

So long as the time delay is enough to clear the graphics driver reloading, that should sort most startup failures... :bang:

 

[arad85]

Crikey, that seems a bit long winded!

I have both my monitors colour managed from Win 7. I use a small program called xcalib (see: http://xcalib.sourceforge.net/)

I calibrated both my monitors and saved their profiles. I now have 2 shortcuts to xcalib in my Startup folder which point to:

C:\Users\Andy\Documents\bin\xcalib.exe -s 0 C:\WINDOWS\system32\spool\drivers\color\Monitor1.icc

and

C:\Users\Andy\Documents\bin\xcalib.exe -s 1 C:\WINDOWS\system32\spool\drivers\color\Monitor2.icc

The advantage is the startup folder always gets loaded after the Nvidia driver (which doesn't "manage" any settings for me) so doesn't ever get overridden. It may behave differently on an ATI system (don't have one here to test).

 

[singlespeed]

Crikey, that seems a bit long winded!

The advantage is the startup folder always gets loaded after the Nvidia driver (which doesn't "manage" any settings for me) so doesn't ever get overridden. It may behave differently on an ATI system (don't have one here to test).

The 'Intel Media graphics accelerator for mobile' seems to load quite late in the boot sequence. It also has a nasty habit of refreshing itself when coming out of sleep/hibernate/screen saver.....

Hence it over rules the x-rite loader which is as you say, is located in the start menu and therefore is a run once task


After the long winded setup, it is only a few clicks to manualy refresh it if required, as the task scheduler now reloads the profile after the graphics driver... This seems to be prety good so far