Solved Does anyone else have problems with grainy pixelated fonts in explorer in light mode?

Windows 11 release 21H2 22000.194 For 4 days I've been messing with this. I upgraded a 6 month old Dell PC to Windows 11 without a hitch, but afterwards the visuals were a real mess. Fonts were fine in applications but not DARK BLACK which they have always been before. They show up as dark gray. In windows explorer they are grainy, dim, and very hard to read. I tried several different themes and nothing changed. The ONLY way I could make the fonts easy to read in explorer was to select dark mode but I despise all that black. Even in dark mode where the fonts are white, they are not clean and crisp like they should be. In control panel the green fonts are so pale I can't read them at all. I've played around with font size and even a different system font until I can at least read items in file explorer but it is still not as legible as it was in Windows 10. I verified I had the latest video drivers, ran SFC, and tried every old solution I could find on the web but nothing helped. Has anyone else had this problem and does anyone know a solution? I hate to have to go back to Windows 10 simply because Windows 11 is so hard on my eyes.

Off the top of my head,l, graphic driver might not be fully compatible. My fonts etc are fine and crisp.

Another thought .. does your Windows have ClearType enabled?

Hi,
Font quality never noticed anything bad
Theme wise and font settings now that's another thing which is terrible but that is also a 10 trait as well.
Theme wise dark mode makes things easier to not deal with lol

No Problem here but dark mode looks sharper

What is your graphics board brand or is it on mob

Light mode and dark mode are both sharp on my 4K OLED.

To answer everyone's questions---Clear type on and calibrated...brand new video driver released from Dell last month (worked great with 10)...graphics is Intel UHD 630 onboard graphics(windows update says I have latest driver)... Let me point out something else. In regedit the folders are very pale yellow. Let's say I expand a folder to find a dword value on the right, the folder on the left is not highlighted so I can know what entry I'm working in. The only way I know is to look in regedit's address bar. It makes working in the registry a tedious thing. I guess I can try resetting Windows 11 but I shouldn't have to. I'll darn sure do a backup first because 11 has me spooked.

You could try checking the Resolution, Colour depth and Refresh Rate of your Intel device.
A lower refresh rate can appear blurry, but you say it is okay on a dark mode setting. So, check the color depth is set correctly as well.

Try turning HDR off and back on. What you describe seems to be an effect I get every once in an while and this will fix it for me.

@glasskuter



If you haven't already done this... it helps a lot.

To anyone who runs across this thread, here's what solved this problem for me. I have to say I feel like a real idiot that I didn't try it this sooner. I went to "Adjust Appearance and performance of Windows" and found it to be set as 'Adjust for best appearance'. I changed it to 'Let Windows decide' and rebooted, but the pixelation was still there so I changed it back to 'Adjust for best appearance.' When I rebooted again, the pixelation was gone. Go figure. The funny thing was that when it was pixelated, it was only in explorer...not in Word or any browsers or apps. Thanks to all of your input. After all the effort I spent on this, it's time for Quervo.