Color Management: Vista won't hold a custom ICC profile

[globetrotter]

I have an HP Pavilion dv2000 laptop running Vista. I used a Spyer2Pro to
calibrate my monitor and use the accompanying ColorVision program to load the
resultant ICC custom profile as the default color profile via the Vista
startup routine. The profile loads fine, and the color switches to the
custom profile. After two or three minutes, however, the colors switch back
to the uncalibrated Vista default profile. Only a reboot will load the
custom profile again. Any ideas? HP was no help. Thanks in advance.

 

[Andrew McLaren]

I have an HP Pavilion dv2000 laptop running Vista. I used a Spyer2Pro to
calibrate my monitor and use the accompanying ColorVision program to load
the
resultant ICC custom profile as the default color profile via the Vista
startup routine. The profile loads fine, and the color switches to the
custom profile. After two or three minutes, however, the colors switch
back
to the uncalibrated Vista default profile. Only a reboot will load the
custom profile again. Any ideas? HP was no help. Thanks in advance.

Hi Globetrotter

This appears to be a common problem with Vista and ICCs - possibly a bug.
The ICC will load, but then the Gamma Look-Up Table will be reset following
a number of different actions. See for example:

http://neosmart.net/blog/2007/windows-vistas-gamma-table-bug/

As far as I know, there is no bug number and no hotfix yet. Note that it may
be highly dependent on your graphics card hardware and driver, as well as
the Windows-supplied colour profile functions (unconfirmed).

As suggested in the above blog, running the DisplayProfile utility may be a
workaround.

The Colour team at Microsoft have a blog site here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/color_blog/default.aspx. You may be able to contact
them directly to see if they know about the problem or the solution.

Good luck with it,

 

[RalfG]

ok an UPDATE to my post above. btw thanks Andrew for the thread link
regarding DisplayProfile - I have not tried it yet but may yet do so.

However, something bizarre is going on here - I turned off the
Calibration Loader startup item (which is installed along with Eye-One
Match) restarted and interestingly it would appear that the system is
now holding what looks to be my custom icc profile !? I checked some
numbers in photoshop and they are correct. I switched the Calibration
Loader startup item back on, restarted vista and the problem is back
hmm. So the Calibration Loader start up item that is meant to load my
custom calibration at startup is conflicting with the system? when
switched off vista appears to be handling my icc profile fine.

I going to test this further by creating a wacky icc profile - then
test with the Loader on and off just to be sure that Vista is handling
the profile when the Loader is switched off.

Existing software might not be fully compatible with SP2 or specific
programs might require a reinstall due to file changes made by installing
SP2.