HOWTO GUIDE: Running Vista x64 on m15x

Richard, That is sad but true. OEM versions are meant for OEMs and Microsoft has limited support for them. They are sold in bulk to vendors like AW and vendors are licensed to modify and build their own versions based on the OEM image. As you get it for discounted price and MS has a contract with vendors those keys cant be used for getting new media from MS.

You have to purchase a new retail copy of Vista

 

It will not work, starting from Vista and also in Server 2008. All the images are actually burned into single DVD image. Your product key decides which version to install. Even if you boot from Vista Ultimate DVD and use Home Premium Key it will install Home Premium only and not Ultimate.

 

Well yeah course it will but he just wants to use 64 bit by the sound of it so... i doubt versions are a big concern..

 

Well, i'd say, ALMOST everything is working
It seems the option for the keyboard lighting is missing. I guess its because the modified AlienFXEditor was created from a distribution without the keyboard lighting?

Any chanches to enable this option?

Cheers, Christian

 

This is a bug in AlienFX as mentioned in their support forums. I am working on a fix for this. You can for sure check that keyboard lighting do works by running

C:\Program Files (x86)\Alienware\Command Center\AlienwareAlienFXTester.exe

I hate this... I have to fix their bugs as well????

 

Btw findvikas: Nice job, really. It's much appreciated. Would you be in my Computer engineering class, i'd give you a 1 (I'm assistant professor at a technical university). Keep it up.

Cheers, Christian

 

I take my hat off to you kind sir... I've just installed my vlited vista x64, installed Command Centre and the OSD wotsits and guess what... it all works absolutely spiffingly!

Tom

 

Its nice to know that I was able to help community. Please participate in the poll results and also you might wanna update your signature now

 

I've done the vote and the sigs going up now

Tom

 

what about the 4GB ram?
are the fully used?
i've heard about 4gb problems even on vista 64 because of faulty bios

 

Never heard of that but my system can use full 4gb

 

This is soo cool. Can't wait to try it out. Great work findvikas.

 

Awright.. I found it. Their are two ways to fix it, either I patch another DLL or just do a registry hack. I will go for easy way patching the registry.

1) Open task manager, go to processes, select AlienwareAlienFXController.exe and click End Process
2) Open Regedit
3) Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE\DESCRIPTION\SYSTEM\BIOS
4) On the right hand side, check the BaseBoardManufacturer value it should be "Alienware"
5) Change it to "ASUS" (without quote)
6) Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Alienware
7) On the right hand side right click and create a new DWORD value, name it "AlienFXKeyboard", set its value to 1
9) Start the Command Center, it will ask you to start AlienFX Controller agree to it.
10) Go to Theme->Close Theme
11) Go to Theme->Open Theme->Choose "Alienware" (the default theme which came with Command Center)
12) You should have Keyboard listed there now (tell me if not)
13) Choose the color, apply them and close the Command Center
14) Follow Step 1 to 3 again
15) Revert the BaseBoardManufacturer to "Alienware"
16) Delete the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Alienware\AlienFXKeyboard key
17) Start the command center again and you should have the keyboard value there.
18) To confirm that it works, close the current theme and create another new theme and it will still show the keyboard in there.

Please try the changes and confirm that they works for you. If they do then I will update the GUIDE to include this fix.

ROOT CAUSE: Alienware uses Virtual USB Device to control it's AlienFX. While installing the Command Center it somehow disable the keyboard assuming that there is no AlienFX Keyboard installed. So it sends the disable signal to keyboard which got preserved in BIOS. When we set the board to ASUS, it does not tries to read the value from BIOS as ASUS's board might not support storing this value in BIOS and rather it read the value from registry.

Once we set those values and enable the keyboard it's actually stored in BIOS with a setting which turn the keyboard enabled. Now you no longer need the registry changes and can safely revert them back.

It worked for me and hopefully my theory should be correct.

AW reps... want to confirm my theory.. I know you are reading this thread

 

well idk if anyone has tried this on there m17x but i have ordered two new 320GB HDDs hopefully once they arrive here i will have them installed and try it out on my system... i do not have a lighted keyboard so that will be missing out of my adventure but i will test everything else out and as for stealth mode i think it will still work since on the m17x it only downclocks your cpu when you do this

oh and thanks alot findvikas did a great job and hope you continue to do so

 

Confirmed, findvikas. It worked.
But, when i loaded the default theme, the keyboard was not there. Only when i created a new theme, it showed up. So thanks a bunch *again*

 

Yeah... there is some really funny stuff that CommandCenter does while installing AlienFX. If you want it, open your theme file in notepad (it's actually a xml file) It think that you have m17x Skull Model

Search for Tag <Model>YOUR_MODEL_HERE</Model> replace YOUR_MODEL_HERE with MDRipley. This will make your Default skin to load just fine.

I will update the guide now

 

Nah, its alright, i don't mind creating a new profile. If its all it takes i'm more than happy. got a m15x btw (and updated my sig hehe).

one funny thing remains though, the alienware text above the power button does not work (never did with the x64 patch). But i really don't care about that, so now i'm completely happy, thanks

 

wait a minute.. it does not? can you please do a test for me
Run C:\program files (x86)\Alienware\Command Center\AlienwareAlienFXTester.exe and test all buttons. See if your Alienware works then.

Do you see it in the list of Command Center ? I know many people, including me who want this.

 

what some ppl forget to do is set it to loop i know i did that and i got scared that it burnt out but then i went into command center and just set the light to loop and it was turned on always... maybe that might be it

 

Good point.. wongdong see if that's the problem. I do not see any reason why Alienware Logo will not light up. I have checked the code again and it should work without fail on all m15x

 

Nono, the light is principally working. It all shines in the FX Tester. Just the commandcenter doesn't activate it (even though i can choose it). And yes, i tried all combination tried single color, looping and so on, but don't worry about it, it's not big a deal.

What do you mean "if i see the list in the command center"? The option to change the lighting is there, yes, it's just not activated when changed (even though it is operational, because it works with the tester).

 

Yeah I meant the same and strange if it does not work. Will look into code once again.

Also I was planning to build a WinAMP or WMPlayer plugin for AlienFX anybody care about that? What do you think it will be cool to have your AW act as disco lights with sound beats

 

i vote sticky for this thread.....

 

that would be pretty sweet findvikas

 

Right... in fact I have an even better idea. I will first create an very easy to use developer framework to control the AlienFX which can be used from any .Net language of your choice. Later I will work on other applications. I will start a new thread for AlienFX development once I have something to share.

 

what language you doing all of this in findvikas??

 

english.....

 

good one ... btw its C# 3.5

 

Hello. Three things:

1. Kudos on the 64bit support. 100% lovely of you!

2. I have the retail Windows Vista Ultimate (32 and 64 bit DVDs included) but was hoping to leave it on my old machine for my brother. Could I use the DVD from that though to create a 64bit partition on my m15x alongside Vista 32 using the same product key as the 32bitOEM version AW ship me for both?

That was pretty badly written, but you guys are pretty smart, so you'll figure it out... 8).

If not:

a. I have 32bit vista on the m15x using product key I.
b. I have full retail vista disks, though this - with product key II is installed on Aurora m7700.
c?. Can I use the retail 64bit disk, with the AW oem 32bit product key - product key I?
d?. Can I install the 64bit vista alongside the 32bit vista on the same m15x symultaneously using the same product key - product key I?

3.Theoretically - admittedly I've not seen viable RAM sticks bigger than 2GB but still - could we now achieve more than 4GB RAM in our m15xs what with the 64bit OS?

Thanks indeed XD

 

paraphrasing... You want to use the same product key on two installations of Vista (architecture does not matter) :- Single product key means single installation, either of them 32bit or 64bit, unless you have volume license which only enterprises purchase to use the same key again and again.

No, OEM keys should not be used for any media other than OEM.

Technically yes, not sure legally!

Vista 64bit supports up to 128gb of RAM like any other 64 bit OS, but there is no hardware support. For home use, only quad core can support up to 8gb RAM. Lenovo has recently launched or planning to launch (not sure) first ever laptop to support and have factory installed 8gigs of RAM.

Practically.. there are no applications out who really need that much RAM. wait for Windows 7 and 8.. they might cross this limit

 

Wow, thanks again dude. Looks like my bro is gonna have to make do with XP; maybe I'll get a skin to make it look like vista and hope he doesn't notice

So, to summarise:

findvikas = win

 

Nice guide findvikas! I followed it thoroughly and now have command center in x64 I have a problem with one part of command center though: everytime AlienFusionController controller is run, it gives me an error: "the source was not found, but some or all of the event logs could not be searched. Inaccessible logs: Security". Also the graphics driver you included didn't work (the inf wasn't modded), but 177.79 off of lv2go worked perfectly. Thanks again for the guide!

 

Wow, a .net framework would be great. Thats more my level of coding hehe.

And the "problem" with the Alienware Name remains for me. But as said before, i really don't care as long as my keyboard shines hihi.

 

Thats strange wongdong..all my zones work perfectly for me (including keyboard)

 

Oh darn i feel so stupid.
The reason why it didnt work is simply that i chose the wrong reg file. I used the f17*instead of MD* Sorry for the confusion i caused.

So again, everything works perfectly for the one that can READ!
Shame on me

PS: Curious though, that everything else worked.

 

Hmm... dunno wats the problem with your Alienware name.. but I created a application which might fix your issue

I named it DiscoFX as it keep on changing your all light colors, not just 12 but more than 50 colors. Actually you can make your own color - with a combination of Red+Green+Blue (RGB)

I have uploaded two files - AlienFXApi.dll and DiscoFX.exe
You can reuse AlienFxApi.dll in your own .Net programs and use very simple to use Api to change your colors and many more to come in future releases.
download them here - http://rapidshare.com/files/139297353/DiscoFX.rar

I am not sharing the code as it is very basic and do not want people to extend this library.. I have some big plans with AlienFX and want to make a very easy to use yet powerful API to control AlienFX lighting.

Try them and let me know if you like it. You need to place both these files in your "C:\program files(x86)\Alienware\Command Center" folder as it uses some of it's dll

 

Now I feel relaxed . That may be because every single led has a fixed code and possibly it may be different for m17x and m15x

 

Hope you have followed every single step and in order?
Graphics driver contains modded inf from laptopvideo2go.com and I myself tested including many others and it worked for all of us. I believe you and it may be some silly driver conflict or may be a pending restart causing the issue.

 

Wow findvikas. This just keeps getting better and better. But you know what would be cool beyond measure? If you made a plugin for FPS games that would make it so that, say your default AlienFX color is blue, but every time you got hit/damaged in the game the color would flash momentarily red.

 

the LEDs don't respond fast enough to flash methinks...

 

yes..that is the limitation I believe. the keyboard specially has to turn off to change the color. rest can change color without switching off... this is still very early version & only for testing the capabilities of it. If I send commands very fast it stops responding.

 

In the network folder, what is the difference between the dpinst64.exe and the iprodifx? I couldn't install the dpinst64 because i wasn't logged on as an administrator, and didn't have internet to find out how to do this, so I just installed the iprodifx and my internet works. should i install the dpinst64?

 

It should not make much difference as iprodifx will search for drivers and install if they are not available. dpinst64.exe comes from Microsoft as part of Driver Development Kit and recommended method for drivers deployment for 64 bit machines likewise we have dpinst.exe for 32 bit machines

 

Guys... I am going to my home town on 2 weeks vacations, I may not be that active but will try to respond as soon as possible. I am signing off now.. see ya..!

 

F17Ripley.reg
F17RipleyNLP.reg
F17Skullcap.reg
MDRipley.reg
MDRipleyNLP.reg
MDSkullcap.reg

How do you know which one to pick? What is F17, MD, NLP?? I have an m15x ripley.

 

Well i did a bit of guess work and reconed the 'NLP' was (no light pipes), and the F17 to be the M17x. As for the MD im not sure what its abbreviating but it worked on my M15x nicely You'd be wanting the 'MDRipley' (with NLP/ or not)

 

I now have 64 bit vista on my system, but I'm having a few problems.

1) I did the keyboard fix, but my keyboard still doesn't show up

2) My touch controls don't work. None of them.

3) When I start windows, I get the following error:

the source was not found, but some or all event logs could not be searched. inaccessable logs: security

Anybody have any bright ideas?

Also, when you reinstall the OS, does the bios that was on the system before remain on? Or do you have to flash it again?

 

when my m15x gets back from repairs i'll totally try this.... funny thing is that i sent the m15x in for repairs becuase the binary gfx switch wouldnt work in vista32 or xp32.

cheers =)

ps: if you feel really enthusiastic.... all of the above support for linux? :-D

 

Any chance i can find a guide for my m17x just like this one?

 

He is right per my theory (no official source to confirm but sounds logical)

I could give it a shot.. oh btw.. if you are a linux guru, cant you configure Mono + Wine and see if this works for you? Its been a long time I get my hands dirty on linux.. I guess it was those Redhat 7.5 days and ubuntu was never heard off.

Can you try the same patch on your m17x, may be on a new partition... theoritically it *should* work and if it does not.. let me know why!