Finally fixed the ATI Bug

Thanks to a link from Gringod, I downloaded the ‘New Microsoft Color Control Panel Applet for Windows XP’ from the M$ website. This great tool finally gives you control of the colour profiles installed on your system and switching between different profiles for different tasks is a simple matter of selecting what you want.

The real benefit for me came in the added bonus side effect of the tool overcoming an issue with the ATI X800 graphics card installed in my system. By reading the ‘Readme’ file after installation (something I never do but may start now) I discovered that it is possible to use flags on the application. By altering the application to start with a /L flag, the tool will load up the default profile in stealth. This shortcut could then be placed into the startup folder to be run when logging in to Windows.

I was keen to try this because I have been having a long term problem with the ATI drivers. My calibration tool has a profile loader that will load the profile when the computer starts but the ATI drivers would then override the proper profile with something akin to nothing! I discovered a year ago that I had to remove the profile loader from startup, wait for Windows to load then use the loader. All would be well with the LUT (Lookup table) and I could continue as normal… this was a complete pain though and now that this has been solved on my PC, I am quite pleased!!

• From the M$ site, the tool has the following features;
• • Install and uninstall ICC color profiles
  • Inspect, rename, and compare two different color profiles
  • View a 3D graphics plot of color profile color gamuts
  • Associate color profiles with devices such as printers, monitors, and scanners
  • Apply custom color gamut adjustments to one or more displays on the fly
  • Set up display calibration reminders at intervals you specify