Solved: (Win) Color mismatch, Photoshop showing better colours, Camera Raw, Adobe Bridge and 3rd party apps worse due to ACM

Dear all, 

I already have a working and proven solution to my issue after 10 hour reading posts, cross-checking and ultimately finding out through trial and error. The solution I would like to share with so you’ll be spared the pain. 

Issue:

On the same monitor, there was a colour mismatch between pictures displayed in Photoshop and other apps in Windows 11. Photoshop was the most vibrant, closest to the desired AdobeRGB, all other apps like Camera Raw, Bridge, and third party editing tools showed something more like sRGB. This was also the case for some other non-photo-editing related apps, e.g. Windows explorer showed pictures in AdobeRGB, the photo/video preview app in sRGB. Hence, the problem pointed towards the operating system. 

Background: 

Windows 11 25H2 has a bug concerning ACM when using hardware or software-calibrated monitors. It somehow overwrites colour profiles in certain apps, but not in others, “on the fly”. 

Applicable specifications (main factors bold others for reference), e.g.: 

OS:              Windows 11 25H2
Screen 1:    BenQ SW270c (10 bit, AdobeRGB, HDR 10, hardware calibration capable)

CPU:           AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
GPU:           Geforce RTX 5080
RAM:           32GB DDR5-5200
Screen 2:     HP Pavillion 22cw (8bit, IPC, sRGB, only software calibration capable)

Solution: 

1. Turn off automatic colour management (ACM) in Windows 11: Open Settings → System → Display → colour profile → choose affected screens and switch off “automatically manage colour for apps” for each
2. Change settings in the Colour Control Panel app: click on search bar → type in “colorcpl” → click “run as administrator” → choose the affected display → uncheck “use my settings for this device” 

Other cross-checks done beforehand: 

1. Clean uninstalled and reinstalled Photoshop, Camera Raw, Bridge and 3rd party apps
2. Turned GPU usage on / off for all affected apps
3. Completely removed display drivers in safe mode
4. Reinstalled display drivers (studio) as clean install
5. Deleted old calibration profiles
6. Re-calibrated displays (fullcal)