My assumption is that you are already familiar with eyeglasses (if not, read the other posts) and also familiar with ctrl +.
My first advise to improve contrast is to get light characters on a black background.
The windows magnifier, starting from windows 7, allows you to invert the colors (use buttons ctrl-alt-i to invert the colors). Select the full screen mode. Unfortunatly this only available on the Aero schemes on windows 7, and not the high contrast schemes. From windows 8 on, high contrasts theme is possible in combination with the magnifying glass. My advise is NOT to use black background high contrast theme. In theory it is a good idea, but there always remain some application that support it partially or not at all. Other applications need al lot of configurations to get the colors right. Web pages don't support it all, they choose their own colors.
In my opinion, the high contrast theme with the white background in combination with an inversion of the colors with the magnifying glass works best. What I see as an advantage of this theme is that internet explorer (and also firefox I believe) sees that a high contrast theme has been selected and overrides the colors of the webpages (no longer grey text on white background). Chrome doesn't. That may be an advantages in situations when you really need the colors. Ofcourse the windows magnifier can also be used the magnify the screen with windows +. The steps can be made smaller than the default +100% by using the slide bar in the settings panel.
I don't know any program that changes the view of the programs that really changes the view of programs. Expect some reader modes inside programs.
The next options may be not be suited for you, but I wish the share some more knowledge.
A problem with large magnifications is that it is difficult to orientate yourself or the view. In particular if you switch between programs, or screens. This is one of the shortcomings of the free magnify programs. There are specialized programs that helps you with these shortcomings. For example if you start word, you start with the cursor on the right spot. If you go to the menu with a keyboard shortcut, the screen moves to the right spot. However I believe you need to arrange some support and training to find out the best way of working with these programs. Try to get in thouch with users of such programs before buying these programs. In some countries there are paramedicsupport organisations that can help you.
Because you mention that you read text a lot, it might be an option to use screen readers. Programs that read text aloud. It make take extra time to listen to a document. But perhaps you understand a document better after hearing. And it may save you energy.