Windows 8 – How to disable adaptive screen brightness

Windows 8 laptop users out there would be familiar with the auto-brightness ‘feature’. The feature uses a light sensor to detect the brightness of the room and automatically adjust the monitor to suit. Unfortunately for a lot of people the results are annoying, often leaving the screen a lot darker than desired or at worst adjusting the brightness every few seconds.

Fortunately you can disable the feature quite easily, if you know where to look. 

Note: you will need Administrator level access to change this setting as it will affect all users that use the computer.

How to disable the adaptive brightness setting

  1. Open the Windows menu and start typing ‘control’
  2. MSWindows8-DisableScreenBrightness1
  3. This will bring up the ‘Control Panel’click on it to open
  4. Start typing ‘power’ and click on ‘Power Options’
  5. MSWindows8-DisableScreenBrightness2
  6. For the power plan you have selected (shown in bold) click ‘Change plan settings’
  7. MSWindows8-DisableScreenBrightness3
  8. Now click on ‘Change advanced power settings’
  9. MSWindows8-DisableScreenBrightness4
  10. In the list, scroll down until you see ‘Display’
  11. Expand ‘Display’
  12. Expand ‘Enable adaptive brightness’
  13. Now for both (or for the one you require) change the option to ‘Off’
  14. MSWindows8-DisableScreenBrightness5