Alienware HiveMind (Alpha's new UI; works on other Computers)

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us...alienware-alpha&languageCode=EN&categoryId=AP
http://na.alienwarearena.com/forums...alienware-hivemind-on-other-system-than-alpha
Not just limited to the Alpha, and it works on Windows 8.1 and 10. I think someone got the old Alpha UI to work on Windows 7, so it should be doable on Win7 as well. So if you ever wanted to try it out, you can now.

 

Interesting. Thanks for sharing that. Something possibly cool to tinker with. Will try it and see what happens. +5 Rep points for you bro.

Edit 1: might be able to tweak this nonsense installation blockage later on to force it on Windows 7. But, since I have dual boot and rarely ever select Windows 8.1, this will give me something interesting to use Windows 8.1 for other than the occasional artificially fluffy Fire Strike score.



Edit 2: Hmm. OK. New error after rebooting into Windoze 8.1 OS. It's not going to just "work" is it? Since it is "not supported" it deserves some attention to do that which was never intended. Now I feel compelled due to the alluring call better known as an act of defiance. The million dollar question is, "Will the reward be worth the effort?" I hope so. They burned a lot of money and calories on developing this.



Edit 3: Wonder if this will have any unintended consequences, or if it will turn out to be irrelevant? Let's find out, shall we?

Hint: Read the "Read Me" and install using Administrator Command Prompt.

 

OK...installed.Posting.this.from.AlphaUI/Steam.browser.Sorry.for.the.dots...spacebar.does.not.work.
Interesting.I.have.always.like.Kodi. This.would.be.great.for.TV.output...for.desktop.not.so.much...still.pretty.slick.


Looks.like.the.enter.key.creates.a.space.Definitely.not.a.good.replacement.for.desktop.computing.Pretty.much.like.a.custom.skin.for.Steam.Big.Picture.mode.with.extra.features.Slick.

 

All righty then. Back on Windows Desktop. Well, this is pretty well done. I might use my M18xR1 in the living room entertainment center for livingroom TV gaming now. You can navigate Windows using the wireless XBOX 360 controller instead of a keyboard and mouse, which would be useful from 15 feet away from the TV screen. It's not my bag, but I think it was well done and my kids and grandkids would really like it. @Alienware-L_Porras - please tell the AlphaUI team I said "good job" on this. Works nice on the M18xR2.

 

For what it's worth, you, the forum members, can vote on the next HiveMind background.
(There are only 15 unique entrants. Some people posted at most 3 entries, as allowed in the rules.)

 

I think I like the one that came standard with it the best compared to the contest entrants. It looks really nice. A couple of them are very similar to the standard background.

 

seeing as how I run Kodi + xbmchub all the time on my media center I may have to attempt It on an M18X I inherited.

 

Hmm... so @Game7a1, @KCETech1 and myself are the only people that think this is really cool? Sheesh, I mean, this kind of thing isn't even my cup of tea, even a little bit, but I cannot deny the coolness factor of this UI. I think I am even going to put it on my Clevo with a new background/skin... pretty slick, really. If you like Kodi, this is Kodi on steroids. If you aren't sure, give it a shot. You might actually be impressed with it. Played a couple of hours of Arkham Knight through the Alpha HiveMind UI last night and worked as well or better than it did in the normal Windows 8.1 environment. I think it may have even been a little smoother, to be honest. Or, maybe Arkham Knight was just having a good day.

 

Fox, im honestly thinking this skin on Kodi, then my normal plugins packages, this girl needs her 1channel and icefilms you know. then add in a good MAME emulator, my rom's and then I have a pretty nice looking media center that looks to run good off of a controller. Granted I do have a really nice Logitech air mouse I use now on both the default and a custom skin already.

you boys can keep your big FPS games etc, Ill go find a good copy of commander Keen or my old Sega games.

 

I still love Commander Keen. So do my kids (who are now adults). I also love the original Wolfenstein 3D and Doom titles. Tucked away somewhere in my collection of antique computer stuff I still have my original 3.5 inch floppy disks with those games on them, LOL. Quake and Hexen came right on their heels with the arrival of then new and cutting edge CD-ROM technology. I think I still have those old CDs stashed away, too.

 

the Commander Keen series in my opinion is STILL some of the best side scroll games built. Nintendo could have taken lessons back then for certain. but since were going old school how about Dig Dug and the old Choplifter too.

hmmm I think I have some of them on 5.25" disks as well..... and no drive to read them

 

I can't get the program to execute using the readme included
Can someone write the command used to execute the setup in 8.1x64

 

Did you already do the registry tweak to change your M17xR4 BIOS name?

 

The system product name in regedit right?

 

Yes, that's right. Have to do that or it will not install. If you have done that and followed the instructions in the readme file and running the setup file as administrator, then I don't know why it's not working for you. You're attempting to install it under Windows 8.1 Update 1, correct? I tried under Windows 7 first (my preference as the superior OS) and it would not work.

 

7's my default OS as well ( I think it was your post that it didn't work in 7x64) so I too have 8.1 as a dual boot redundant OS, figured may as well put it to some use after all

I'll see if I can d/l it again and figure out if it works. Anything I need to help configure it and can one change the registry back to default which in my case would be the R4

 

I had no trouble installing it at all once the registry tweak was in place. What is it doing? Is it failing with an error message, or the executable refusing to run?

 

Thank you fox, for some reason it's working after I downloaded another copy, did you ever change the registry back to its original, and can you change the default logon from Hive to user for win8.1 ( so hive does not auto logon, my r4 is still my original laptop, can't relegate it to htpc duties just yet

 

No, I never changed it back (registry). Just left it that way. I could not figure out how to stop it from automatically logging into HiveMind instead of going to the Windows logon screen. I did not spend a lot of calories trying to figure it out. I spend most of my time in Windows 7, and my system defaults to Windows 7 at boot by default. I ended up uninstalling HiveMind because I was troubleshooting an issue with XTU crashing at launch under Windows 8.1. Turns out it had nothing to do with the XTU issue, but I have not reinstalled it again yet. XTU issues were being caused by one or more Windows Updates. Getting rid of the updates fixed the problem.

 

No need to change it back, the check is done ONLY at install of HiveMind. The BIOS info in the registry is dynamic and will re-update on next reboot using DMI info back to whatever is reported by your BIOS... I found this hack disassembling the installer and shared for others to install.. Was a dumb check to be honest..

Also, just FYI for others wanting to try, even though my screenshots in the guide are from Windows 10 TP 10162, I can confirm this also works in the RTM build.