There are plenty of ways to change the display brightness of a Windows 10 PC. What if some of these are not available? I ran into the issue the other day on a new system running Windows 10 20H2, an Intel 530 graphics adapter, and a LG 4K monitor.
The option to change the brightness was not displayed in the Action Center, and there was no option to add it or control the brightness using the Settings application.
Microsoft even has a support article up that supposedly tells you how to change the screen brightness in Windows 10. Problem is, it has not been updated since Windows 10 version 1903, at least that is the version mentioned in the article. Some of the instructions don"t work anymore on newer versions of Windows 10.
While it was possible to use the monitor"s own controls to change the brightness, it felt odd that the options were not there. I tried updating drivers to see if that would make a difference, but it did not.
Since I did not want to spend more time researching the issue, I decided to look for a free program for Windows to change the display brightness instead. Requirements were simple: it had to be free and as lean as possible; this excluded programs such as F.Lux right away.
ScreenBrightSome promising programs did not work under Windows 10 anymore, but I finally found a program that fit the bill: ScreenBright is a free portable program for Windows to change the display brightness and some other parameters. It has a size of less than 400 Kilobytes when unpacked, and an easy to use interface.
The original homepage of the developer is no longer available, and the last update dates back to 2014. Despite all that, it works just fine on Windows 10 20H2. You can download the latest version from our servers with a click on the following link: ScreenBright
All it takes is to start the application and use the brightness slider that it displays to adjust the brightness. The new brightness level is applied immediately and you may hit the save button to save the new level. You can then close ScreenBright without losing the changes. ScreenBright supports changing the contrast and color luminance, and the color warmth as well. The program even supports multiple displays if these are connected to the device.
Closing WordsScreenBright is a well designed software program for Microsoft Windows devices to change the display brightness, contrast, and color luminance. It is portable and lightweight, and does not need to be running all the time.
Now You: Have you changed color settings on your systems?