HOWTO GUIDE: Running Vista x64 on m15x

Have you installed all of the softwares with a local admin account ?
Your problem is documented here - http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=324053&SiteID=1

See if the fix suggested in the forum works for you.. if not then dont revert the changes suggested in forum, and let's try this..

1) Uninstall both Command Center and OSD
2) Reboot the machine and see if your touch control works... atleast the lights turn on/off
3) Install the OSD and move the dll to syswow64 (see my guide for detailed information)
4) Reboot the machine and see if your touch control works and you can see on screen display icons
5) If everything works then do the Command Center patch.

Do let me know how it goes...

 

I did the above steps, and it worked! Like someone else reported, the keyboard lighting still doesn't show up in the current alienware theme, but I just created a new theme it was there. findvikas, thanks a lot for all of your hard work. You have been more than helpful, and you have fully answered all questions/problems that people have had. And I liked your post to Alienware in the other thread.

 

Can someone please help me. Every time I try to read into this my eyes get fuzzy, and the words begin to blur. I just cant tell from the instructions, if this is done do the lights in the keyboard work?

 

Sorry but I had hard time in understanding your question. Do you mean to ask in simple words "has this guide worked for anyone?"

 

As the poll shows, 7 users have followed this guide, and 7 users, including me, have perfectly functioning m15x's with 64 bit operating system. And even though I keep hearing "you really don't need 4 gb of ram, 3 is plenty," it's really nice seeing 4096 available MB in my windows sidebar. I recommend going for this update.

 

findvikas,

In an effort to find a version of AlienFX that works under Vista 64, I came across your post and decided to give it a go, even tho I don't own a laptop but have an Area-51 ALX desktop. Surprisingly it worked but ofc as your programs are specifically written for laptops, it doesn't adapt all the leds on my system, but at least you proved it can be done.
I guess you don't have a fix for it to work on desktops ? If you do, please let me know. I myself have absolutely no clue on how to make it work on a desktop ALX... It's sad that AW leaves so many ppl in the cold with their 64-bit system.
Thanks in advance for your reply.

 

what all led's work for you and what not? can you share the version of command center setup which came with alx. unfortunately I own only m15x

 

The ones working :
- right chassis panel led
- drive bay leds
- front panel (usb slots) right side

The ones not working :
- power button
- left chassis panel led
- front panel (headphone and mic) left side

Here's the link to the command center soft I got delivered with the ALX :
http://rapidshare.com/files/140815728/COMMANDCENTER.EXE.html
A big thank you for having a look at this !

 

worked wonderfully. everything worked. binarygfx/osd/command center/keyboard lights. props.

 

Stalker, I am suspecting the problem is with default theme. try to create a new theme. I am on vacations but will try to have a look at it as soon as i can.

 

I have attached 2 zip files in the GUIDE, download predator2.zip and install the reg file. Make sure you kill alienfxcontroller before you run this reg file. After installing the reg file, start c:\program files(x86)\alienware\command center\alienfxcontroller.exe

See if this loads default theme for you, if it does not then create a new theme and hopefully it will work... do let me know the results

 

findvikas,

YOU ARE THE MAN ! It works great !
It was indeed just a matter of creating a new theme. You made my day
Would you mind if I post this an the ALX forum I use ? I will ofc make all the credits to you, as it should be. I know that a lot of ppl will be very happy with this.
Have a great vacation and thx again.

 

That is Great! Feel free to share it, my main motive is to help community.

 

Hi.

I just got it working on a desktop and am very thankful to you for the fix.

However, I am not sure how to run the set color option (I hate the default orange, which looks yellow) Do I need to copy the dll file into the alienware folder to get it to work?

API Tester crashes when I run Setcolor without copying the other file into the folder - I haven't tried it yet because i don't want to screw anything up.

 

not sure if this will work for desktops. setcolor is specific to laptops. to run it you need to copy both files in command center folder (setcolor.exe & alienfxapi.dll)

 

i still vote for sticky on this....

 

*Edit* Would a guide for M15X to 64 Bit XP be pretty simliar or far off. The main problem i face is finding the SATA drivers for my m15x, which i need to start the dl! But i would love some tips or pointers on how to do that. I saw a guide on any computer to 64bit XP but alienwares seem to need an extra push.


PS. AMAZING How-To, saved my *** and set me up good!

 

i'll try that once i get my new hdd. right now i am playing with ubuntu

 

Hey Findivikas thanks for the great work. Everything worked perfectly except for the function + F12 touchpad disable button and there is no way to disable the touchpad inside of the Synaptics pointing device properties

[edit] it does disable the light just doesn't turn off

 

Has anyone successfully done this to their m17x yet?

 

Hey guys this guide is amazing. Everything seems to work, except it gives me a problem when i install the drivers that came in the package. It says "You are running a 32 bit version of uninstaller on a 64 bit system (Binary type I386) Wrong version of uninstaller. Uninstaller exits now."

Any idea how to get over this?

 

Which uninstaller are you talking about ? When you faced this problem?

 

I believe yes, you can find most of drivers for m17x or even ALX. The only hurdle was Command Center and OSD which was not supported by AW for 64bit. Now it is.

 

This is a known issue with Synaptic Drivers... following is a snippet I got from My Hive

 

The error message comes up when i execute the setup.exe to install the graphic card drivers from the Graphic folder in the driver package that we were supposed to download from step 6.

 

I walked through the guides last week and everything works great on my m15x! I actually use all 4GB of memory on my laptop as I run multiple virtual machines for product demos. Thanks for all the hard work in putting this together.

Cheers!

James

 

I know it sound idiotic but hope you are running this on 64 bit Vista ??? .. I never heard that error, will look into it.

 

It all started with a challenge that YOU CAN'T DO THAT, but feels great to see so many people happy. You're Welcome!

 

Hi Thanks for the guide again and the help. For some reason vista isn't detecting the built in microphone on the m15x and I can't find it in the device manager and all apps say i don't have it. The Webcam is also not working, but it is listed in the device manager. Whenever a program tries to access the camera the program either tells me it is in use by another program or the program crashes. Thanks for the help again.

I had the same problem as gobstopper. I just downloaded another 64bit driver from laptopvideo2go.com It was the 177.92 driver.

 

I never tried internal microphone but you are right... it is not available for me either. Hmm... will look into it tonight. For the webcam, it always worked for me using YouCam and amCam.exe but strangely Yahoo Messenger does not detect it for some unknown reason. It also never did that on Factory install of vista 32bit home premium. I thought it is some driver issue and will fix later but never really needed it. Yeah I am lazy .. now its time to do this as well..

 

Yeah I think I used it once with skype. The only reason I noticed it was I got new speakers and was looking at sound options and noticed it said i didn't have a mic. Thanks anyways

 

so far running smooooth on 64 bit with everything working.... keyboard is still a little iffy on skipping keys though

idle temps on my 8800 are 45 degrees C with phyx running 177.92 drivers

no bsod's so far(i used to get a few) my alienfx is a little buggy(i think) this morning i turned my lights off before i shut down and went to class.. when i'm in class the lights were back on... and in command center it still shows the option for it as "off". i had to toggle it to turn it off.

 

Hello I really want to activate this "DiscoFx" and "TurnOffLights ".I download this 2 files,I unpack them but I'm not sure what I should to do with them...
Can somebody draw me line for me please

 

You need to extract the content of these two files in "C:\Program Files(x86)\Alienware\Command Center" folder or "C:\Program Files\Alienware\Command Center" if running on 32 bit

Launch DiscoFX.exe and it will show you all the colors AlienFX is capable of displaying, while SetColor accepts parameters and need to be launched from command line. Launching it without command line will show the usage of it.

A quick example could be...

C:\>SetColor.exe AlienHead FF0000
this will set the Alienhead color to Red (Hex representation of RGB colors), f unsure how to get Hex value for your desired color then visit www.colorpicker.com (remove # from the hex value generated by site.

 

Just got an Alienware Insider Mailer today and it reads as

Have they read my guide and talking about setcolor.exe ??? because they dont have this much level of customization in Command Center

 

hehe they actually do. You have 7 designated areas on your notebook, each supporting 12 different colors. Thats n= (12)^7 = 35,8M permutations ;-)

 

I see.. hehe... sure you can do maths better than me

 

what about this "TurnOffLights ",how to activate it?

 

similarly copy both files to command center folder and launch it. this will turn off all lights except power switch. quick way to save some more battery.

 

right, do you know how to reverse that?
How to switch on all lights?
EDIT:
When I put this 2 files to "C:\Program Files\Alienware\Command Center" and when I launch "TurnOffLights.exe" program can not start>>> http://img254.imageshack.us/my.php?image=turnofflightsfh4.jpg
Does anybody knows what I did wrong?

 

Are you running this on 32bit Vista? Have you patched your command center with my version? You need to patch it first to enable AlienFX Development

BTW... to turn it on, you can just disable AlienFX and re-enable it from your Systray Icon (next to clock, right click to disable/enable)

 

I have not patched my command center yet,Can I patch it now or does it work only when I patch before install command center?

 

You can patch it even after installation.. but since it seem you are running 32 bit of Vista you can just extract files off this archive into Command Center folder and replacing all existing files.

http://rapidshare.com/files/138582328/PatchedCommandCenter.rar

 

Thank for yours advice
One more thing...
When I try to run "setcolor.exe" it shows for 1 second and program disappear after that and I can not set different color
P.s. This "TurnOfflLight" options works great now

 

really... what exact command line are you passing to is ?

 

??what do you mean?
I run "DiscoFX.exe" but I stoped it before it shows all colors,maybe that the reason that this "setcolor.exe" can not be run?

 

no that is not true. You need to run SetColor.exe from command prompt and not just double click it. Open up cmd.exe and Cd to c:\program files\alienware\command center

It works something like this
C:\>SetColor Keyboard FF0000
C:\>SetColor AlienHead 00FF00

 

Right,what word I should use if I want to change color of Alienware Name?

 

just run it without any parameter and it will display all of them. or here they are

AlienHead
AlienName
Keyboard
LightPipe
TouchControls
TouchPad

 

Right, take a look on the sreenshot>>> http://img84.imageshack.us/my.php?image=setut1.jpg I did just like you said and nothing happend