HOWTO GUIDE: Running Vista x64 on m15x

the order of operations is actually published by alienware.

I don't have the link handy, but I've seen it.

 

No I did not, but you can buy Vista Ultimate x64. Actually the retail media comes in both variants. If you purchase Vista Ultimate Retail you get two DVDs containing 32bit & 64bit OS. Ofcourse you can install & register any one of them at any given point of time using the same Key.

 

In all honesty, I think that was just about the only thing that MS did RIGHT... providing a version that included both 32 and 64 bit variants...

Too bad it's only for the most expensive version...

 

Mystik,
Would be a great help if you ever find that link. Findvikas link is good but seems a little confusing to me because of my lack of computer experience.

 

I guess its for any version of Vista... if not you can always order the media by just paying the shipping cost. Yeah all you need is a retail product key

 

The link from Alienware is for 32bit systems only and it will NOT work for 64bit.
Anyways the link from AW is here - http://4help.alienware.com/cgi-bin/...adp.php?p_faqid=465&p_sid=jnlEbFjj&p_lva=1010

Do let me know if any part of guide is confusing to you, I tried to keep it as simple as possible by wrapping up drivers in single package.

 

findvikas,
Thanks. Is there any particular version of 64bit Vista i should be buying? Saw several versions on the web. Some say retail version, some say builders edition. Prices range from 170 to over $300.00. Do not want to waste money buying the wrong one.

 

You should buy a retail version, I am not sure about builders edition.

 

Got it. Thanks.

 

findvikas,

Do i need to reformat before installing 64bit Vista Ultimate?
If not will the original be there in case i have use the Respawn option to go back to the factory installed Vista?

 

You can do multi-boot if you have free space left on your HDD. Otherwise you need to reformat it to get 64bit since it does not support upgrading to 64bit from 32bit.

If you have Respawn DVD then its easy to revert back to factory install otherwise it is little tedious.. and messy too

 

Ok this is really annoying me. Running vista 64 with all the stuff here.

It works fine... except.. my volume quick touch light blinks every few seconds and changes my volume randomly. What's going on??

 

That's an issue that can happen with any version of Windows. I've had this several times and was fortunately able to permanently fix it for myself. Try the following and see if this resolves the issue for you.

Copy and pasted a solution I wrote awhile back. Fortunately the first two steps have resolved the issue for the person I wrote it for-- so he didn't need to try out the third step.

I edited the steps above to reflect doing it on x64. See if that resolves the issue for you.

 

findvikas,
Do not have Respawn DVD but can use Respawn 2.0 by F10 button when rebooting. It is already on harddrive. And yes i have plenty of room on my hard drive for Vista 64 bit. So i guess i am good to go when i get the 64 bit disk. Made a copy of your instructions and will post on this thread if i have any problems.

 

Thanks to this guide, I was able to install Vista 64 seamlessly without any major problems. Thanks findvikas!

I would rep you if it let me. ):

 

You're Welcome Big 'O'!

 

question.
in the topic about upgrading to 4gb you write it's better to get 64bit vista http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=326154

why is this ?? i thoughed it was only when you would go over 4gb like 8.

 

No, with any 32bit OS you can address maximum of 4GB RAM (minus the memory range used by other memory mapped hardware resources in the system)

For more information, see this KB - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946003

 

Well I just ordered my m15x. After arguing with AW reps about why they could not load 64bit software on my machine I decided to put my trust in google.

Now it turns out, my m15x should arrive roughly around the 8th... and my trust will now be in findvikas *crosses fingers*

To be honest, I'm looking forward to playing with my new toy, and not formatting it

 

Welcome to NBR.
Sad but you need to format it and buy 64 bit Vista separately. Once you have all the tools - Vista 64bit basically, You can use this guide to have a 64bit vista up and running in around 45minutes from scratch.

 

Yeah, it was seriously a lot easier than I thought it'd be. I thought it'd take more effort to install but it was pretty much "set it and forget it." You won't really have to put much effort into it until after it finishes installing.

 

This driver above is for vista x64 right?
What about driver for Bluetooth,camera,WiFi Intel?Is windows install them during update?I can not see them in guide.
I'm going to install vista x64 and i want to make sure that I have all drivers

 

Yep. they all come from Windows Update.

 

thanks findvikas,
btw. nice work

 

Hey O, When you instaled 64, did you install it on a clean hdd, or are you running dual boot?

 

Running dual boot. Repartitioned the drive within Windows (with PartitionMagic) and installed it on a third partition. (I already had two partitions prior to installing Vista x64)

 

Partitionmagic is the devil.

or atleast for a dummy lke me that tried to run the xp version on vista. Where do you d/l the vista version from?

 

I am having a problem, I am following your steps to the letter but when I try to run the m15x_OSD_Vista_00020 file (where it is supposed to crash) it doesnt even run it, it just tells me m15x_OSD_Vista_00020 is not a valid 32 bit application. kinda weird as I am obviously running 64 bit.

Any ideas?

 

I was using the XP version of PartitionMagic on XP. :<

There's an alternative way to repartition your drive. I suggest you take a look at the guide here.

 

You probably got a corrupt download, try downloading it again.

 

Ok, thanks Im gona give it another try, not sure if Im gona completly delete Vista 32 though, maybe I will dual boot

 

findvikas, I used the guide. Awesome!!! Only one problem though, I lost the ligthing on the keyboard and in the AlienFX editor the keyboard setting is not there for lighting. Thanks for you help...

 

Have you tried the **FIX** for keyboard in the guide. There are couple of things to try and you might just want to start with a new theme. Hope you have run the registry file according to your system?

 

Ok I followed this guide step by step and this guide is awesome, as I write this I am on a fully functional M15x with 4gb of ram in 64 Vista thanks to your help and your great guide. The only driver I seem to be missing is the one for the integrated graphics. the intel drivers. Thats the only thing that seems to be missing from this guide. I thought it was because windows would find the drivers by itself but it doesnt, it simply lists it as "Standard display adapter" and downloading the driver from alienware doesn't work because alienware sucks and offers 0 support for 64bit OS, I tried the 32 bit driver but it doesn't install.

Do you guys have a link for that? or should I just head to intel.com and look for the driver there? Thanks though, this guide kicks ... I even have my wallpaper and user picture the way it was when it came out of the box... seriously guys, great kick job

 

I'll upload it for you. Give me 3 more minutes.

 

Double post. Here you go! Make sure you're on the Intel integrated graphics when you install the drivers.

http://www.audicracy.com/winvista64_15114.exe

 

Let me put it on the main page...

 

Thanks findvikas. =)

 

findvikas, you were right. The fix was simple to fix the keyboard lighting. Just create a new theme and save in the recommended directory. Seems like a brand new laptop now!!! Thanks for the countless hours to help us out!!!

 

Are you guys getting paid or something? cos I don't recall ever recieving so much help, help that works and as fast as with you guys in this forum.

The Alienware support sucks so bad it is not even funny. if you recall I had a problem where the F10 to restore option dissapeared, because I installed a fresh copy of vista that I owned. I figured out how to fix it, I needed to boot with a Norton Ghost disk, then change the active partition to the hidden partition and then boot, once you do that, it boots into the respawn, once you respawn, the machine is back to normal and you have the F10 option again. You just need to boot with Norton ghost again to change the active partition back to the one which now holds the operating system. and for some reason then windows shows that your computer has two hidden partitions, well I went on and deleted one of them with Acronis disk director and thats it. it was working.

Well, I went on and sent alienware an email basicaly saying "hey guys, I formated my PC and installed a fresh copy of vista but I want to respawn it back to how it came on the box but the F10 option is gone, what do i do?"

Their answer was. Oh sorry, you formated, it is now gone forever

I said, no no, the partition is still there.

Their answer. While the partition is sitll there, it is probably wiped out and has no data in it.

I hate how they try to get away with not helping you at all 99% of the time. every solution they give you allways ends in "You need to respawn your machine"

I hate it. They should hire you guys instead.

Anyways, thanks for the file, I will install that driver now and my machine will be finished. thanks again

 

In regard to the alienrespawn partition on the m15x, I erased mine on purpose. if you lost the boot option for "press F10 to ..." blah Alien Respawn, it's either because the boot flags on the disk have changed, or there was some kind of boot loader that was generating the prompt and it's now been overwritten (maybe by reformatting windows... it tends to prefer it's own bootloader)...

in either case, you might be screwed. you could try loading up a partition editor and changing the boot flag to the recovery partition... the prompt might come back... no idea though. I'm not sure how it worked... so I can't say either way.

 

The prompt you get was coming from Respawn partition... I do not have that partition so cannot confirm but logically it will work like this.

2 Partition configuration

Partition 0: Vista Installation Partition (Primary) (Total Size - Respawn partition Size)
Partition 1: Respawn partiton (Primary Boot) (8GB approx)

MBR will look for active partition which is Partition 1, it loads the First sector of Partition 1 (512bytes) and transfer the control there. Boot loader on Partition1 will give you a prompt to press F10, if you do it then it will continue to boot from partition 1 otherwise it will load the boot sector of partition0 in memory and transfer the control back to it.

Partition0 which has Vista installed will boot like normally, assuming MBR gave it the control.

 

Well the way I fixed it was simply by changing the hidden partition to an active partition, that way it allows me to do the respawn and the respawn itself seems to add the F10 option again.

 

Double post, sorry, well I am just about finishing up leaving my machine just the way it was when it was 32 bit, I've just run into another problem, I hope you guys may know something about this.

The graphics driver for the nvidia card doesnt list it as the 9800 (the one I have) instead lists it as NVIDIA G92 600, and I think this is what's giving me the following problem.

When I try to run a blu-ray movie (my machine came with a blu-ray drive) just before it starts to play the movie it tells me that it has an incopatible video driver and it doesnt play the movie. I am wondering if there's a fix for this or should I just make another partition and do an alienware "Respawn" into that partition and use the 32 bit OS whenever I run into these problems that can occur from time to time? Thanks!

 

Yeah, just split the hard drive into two partitions so you can have the best of both worlds. I'll look into your problem whenever I have the time, but I'm currently in the middle of writing a term paper that's due tomorrow.

 

I'm not 100% but I've heard people getting BluRay playback to work with specific sets of drivers... I forget which, but the bluray compatible releases from nVidia are few and far between as far as I know.

It has been a topic of discussion in the past.

 

Well thats still the only thing I cant get to work. my hard drive isnt too big but I sitll made a 25gb partition for vista 32 bit. whenever I need a bluray I'll just use 32bit instead of 64, case resolved I guess

 

Wish I had Blu-Ray to give it a shot but don't see it happening for another 2 years I guess.

 

Same here, haha. Blu-ray was just way too expensive for me to add onto the m15x.

 

The another reason is that they are not as popular in India yet, so you hardly get any Blu-Ray blank media or Movies in BR format.