Do you use any of the alienware software?

So I was playing around in the alienfx software today while I was bored....

I realize now that I dont use any of the pre-install alienware software except for the alienfx colors for my keyboard.

I remember my m11x had facial login feature so I just had to look at the computer and it would log in, my 17 has alien adrenaline along with a bunch of other things. I havent even looked at my m14xr2s option in 2 years.

But anyways, I set up a game mode profile for titanfall, looked through the list of things it can do and its pretty cool, but I dont think I would use any of them really. I dont need to monitor my system while gaming, I dont have any friends so a chat client is useless, turning on a media player seems like it would distract me from whats going on in game. The only thing I set was to change the lights to something else when I turned on the game.

I do use the tactx feature though for hot keys to programs I use since they are worthless for anything in game (too far from WASD)

Do you guys use any of the software?

 

Other than OSD and AWCC for AlienFX, I don't waste any disk space on Alienware software. Autopsy, Respawn, Webcam Central, none of that stuff.

I played around with Adrenaline a little bit. Worked OK, but never really saw a need for it. I use other things that are more convenient.

 

i'm the same with Mr. Fox, just the basics!

 

Considering how they never update anything, NOPE!

 

I still use AlienRespawn. It's great for a fresh install of Windows, to have that 'backup and restore' feature at the click of a button. It saves me much time and hassle from reinstalling again, if need be. If something were to go wrong or become corrupted, all I'd need to do is load AlienRespawn and be done - back to a fresh state.

AlienFX and AWCC is also used on a regular basis. I don't use AlienAutopsy, but I leave it installed just because.

 

Is there anyway to turn of the notifications in alienrespawn. I've already made backup disks and other things it keeps coming up with all these notifications and I'm tired of deleting them and they just keep coming back.

 

I used to really like Alien Respawn and even bought the Premium version because I liked it so much, but that was the older version. The newer versions for Windows 8 have never worked right for me. It gets confused with RAID volumes and often can't find the external backup images that it created. I had a great deal of trouble using it in pure legacy mode with MBR instead of GPT. Never had any of that drama with the older version.

Macrium Reflect is superior in every way and I use that exclusive now. It is very flexible. I can create an image on a USB drive and install it any time, even use it to install Windows with all of my application software ready to go on another machine if need to (has to be reactivated on the new machine, no pirating). Macrium Reflect also does not care if the destination drive is bigger or smaller, and it resizes as necessary. As long as the destination is large enough to hold the original used disk space, you're good to go. All images created with Reflect are mountable like a drive or ISO image, so I can grab individual files and folders from the image if I need them.

Yes, there is. Those notifications are extremely irritating. Open Services, find SoftThinks Agent (or something similar to that) and change its properties to disabled. It does not need to run, and having it running as a background service is known to cause issues. Sometimes you cannot even enable/disable SLI or CrossFire while it is active. The application name appears in Task Manager as "Toaster.exe" but SoftThinks is the Windows Service to disable.

 

Thank you mr-fox.

 

which version did you buy?

 

The older version in 2012, shortly before it was updated for Windows 8.

 

What is the difference between your and the newest version?

 

I started using some of the game defined modes, both on the computer and on my mouse and game pad. Not sure if its really helping any, but its kinda fun to fire up titanfall and watch all my lights change, my mouse settings change, and all that fun stuff

 

I think Windows 8 and GPT support, but it refused to install with an error about not finding the Windows Recovery Environment.

 

i was wondering what the best edition would be to allow for cloning of an SSD and reload to a larger SSD.

 

Using Macrium Reflect instead of Respawn for that would be better. You don't have to care about drive size differences (other than one too small) and there are fewer limitations to using it. The free version of Macrium Reflect should work fine for a cloning or simple drive image. Be sure to make yourself a Macrium Reflect USB thumb boot drive to use for disaster recovery.

 

In my opinion there's too much fiddly stuff with the Alienware Command Centre to be of any practical use. The lighting software is nice, but the rest of it I could say are unnecessary, the operational definition here being that I could live without.

 

The TactX key's are really good. I love using them for CPU/GPU/Screen Overclocks

 

I never use software that are bundled with Alienware or any other brand. Most of them are trash and occupy space, have annoying popups that ask to update the software, that slow down the computer etc.

The first thing I do is do a complete format and reinstallation of a clean OS. Then install my own programs.

That said, I do of course use software that are required to change the LED colours.

 

tactx is good since i upgraded to a BD slot load drive the fn+f4 function won't work so i needed a fix and the effort to get to work is worth it: better to press 1 key than 2!

 

Using Alienware Command Center to map special actions to the TactX keys is awesome. I use that all the time.

What is the command you use to eject the ODD media? I was looking for that recently and could not find it. Please share with us, because the M18xR2 has similar problems with Windows 8.X.X for many users.

For the most part this is true, although Alienware doesn't have as much bloatware as most. HP is the worst I have ever seen. They put TONS of garbage on their systems. Dell puts crapAfee Security filth on the consumer laptops and that's the first thing I remove, and then use the crapAfee removal tool to eliminate all grubby traces of that crapware.

The OEMs get money for the adware hyperlinks and free trial garbage that comes preinstalled (including M$ Office). This money helps them lower their prices on systems to be more competitive. The more garbage you find, the more they got paid.

 

all the info is in this post

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-17-m17x/747265-slot-load-blu-ray-drives-2.html#post9847924

 

Thank you for that. Bookmarked it. +1 Rep

 

no problems

 

I just use command center and even then once I got the AlienFX running what I want I never need to open it again. I soon realised such programs like Alien autopsy and respawn were just taking up hard drive space and never really added any value to the laptop or it's functions.