HOWTO GUIDE: Running Vista x64 on m15x

NOTE: THIS IS STALE AND I AM NOT UPDATING IT SINCE ALIENWARE HAS RELEASED 64 BIT SOFTWARE FINALLY. THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT AND MAKING THIS GUIDE A SUCCESS, ALSO HELPED PUSHING ALIENWARE RELEASE 64 BIT SOFTWARES

Change Log
12/16/2008:
=-=-=-=-=-=
+Direct links provided, no Rapidshare links
+ Integrated graphics driver added
+ FAQ Updated , new formatting added
+ Latest version of Command Center is supported
+ Applications development moved to a new thread


NOTE: Never install any AUTO UPDATE for Command Center. Let them come and I will enhance them to make sure they can work on Vista x64. I will try to patch the latest binaries once they are available and will share them here. Enjoy and share the bugs, problems or any suggestions you may have.

PLEASE SEE FAQ IF YOU FACE ANY PROBLEM. IF IT'S NOT DOCUMENTED THERE THEN PM ME​

AlienFX Development , Sample Applications
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
It was hard to maintain two locations and bug free posts on both the thread. So I have moved the Application development to a separate thread - find it here

DISCLAIMER: THIS GUIDE IS MEANT FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES AND SHOULD BE USED AS PROOF OF CONCEPT THAT m15x CAN FULLY SUPPORT 64Bit OS. THIS IS STILL EXPERIMENTAL, PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU FACE ANY ISSUES

 

Good guide rep + for you

 

nice guide. have a rep.

 

Whoa, amen to this. Thank you very much findvikas. Looking forward to an Alien Command Center update.

 

stupid question maybe - but is this like a vitual on screen keyboard?

then again, maybe i answered my own stupid question....lol
man i feel so noobish....

 

When you hit the touch panel in default installation on m15x, you get pop ups on screen to display the volume level, battery status, back light level and other stuff... so by having this you can have most of them back except few like BinaryGFX, Command Center and few other less useful. But those options will still work in background... like you can see when the backlight change its level or when you bluetooth, WLAN and stealth mode light on/off

I have not given up yet and fighting back with 64bit to make most of features working..

 

well that explained more for me....thx find....+1 for sure.

 

my PCMark Vantage Advanced score.. the same hardware performs way better with 64bit Vista

Vista Ultimate 32-Bit: 3799
Vista Ultimate 64-Bit: 4097

See the attached images for detailed score

 

Does "...wont be able to control your AlienFX" mean that all light are off, or is the keyboard in standard color ? I guess no lights ?!

 

No that means they will stay at the same setting that you had.. for instance I put everything on Green and now they stay green... you have no control to change their color or switch them off... while I am trying to install VMware + WinXP on the same machine and attach a debugger to its kernel to see what happens and what hardware ports the application sends commands to control those lights then probably I should be able to build by own application to control those lights.

I can understand that people pay $100 for that fancy light and they want to control them.. but I prefer more power which 64 bit is giving me. Also I know that lights are not gone forever but they just stay same color.

Hope that helps

 

Good news guys.. it may not be as tough as we and Alienware developers might have thought. We need to recompile only 1 DLL and it *should* work fine. I am trying to disassemble the DLL and will let you know once I get any more success. Keep your fingers crossed... wink...wink...

 

I'm waiting and praying very hard for this. I have 64 bit on my desktop and it's fanastic by comparison. I love using all 4 gigs.

 

go find, go find, its yur birthday.....

 

I'm totally switching over if the Command Center works.

 

hello, i installed vista x64 used yours drivers but how can i switch cards? i have atm internal and i want use Ge8800 but GFX button dont work THANKS A LOT

 

you need to use Fn+F7. if that doesn't work, re-install the OSD/media board drivers.

 

its same, if i press that button i see little panel right down like if i change display brighness but nothing happends

 

Banschee, Switching over cards is not available as of now. Alienware uses some of their proprietary software and I have not looked into it yet how they are doing it. At this point of time my priority is Command Center and I have made some progress and I feel that we should be able to fix the Command Center for 64 bit. Once that part is done I will take on the OSD challenge.

whizzo, it will not work. And you can't have OSD drivers to work on 64 bit as they were compiled for 32 bit. It's lame to see such things from AW, they are best in industry and they should work on their software.

 

findvikas, You wouldn't happen to have found a way to modify the timings or the brightness levels of the Alien FX lighting system? What I would like to find out is if there is any way to make the lights go from blue to red back to blue with a smoother gradient or when in stand by, go from colour to off and back more smoothly. May be add more gradients or change the timing? It would be nice to be able to control the brightness and such...

 

Hi Chatterjee, First thing first... lets fix what is broken! I want to fix the functionality of Command Center and AlienFX once that is done. I will fix another thing which is stopping people to come to 64 bit even after the performance is way too better, the OSD Keyboard.

Once those things are fixed, which could take some time considering my full time job as well. I will see if we can customize it even better.

 

I only ask to find out if you have found the code which might control the timers or the gradients since if it were available, many other might be able to help. Also, you wouldn't be able to tell us what language it is in would you? From what I understand, you would have to de-compile and recompile the Command Center in order for it to work for x64, right?

 

I see... actually the major part of Command Center is written in .Net 3.0
Few parts in Adobe Flash to give that fancy UI

Sorry if this is little advanced for others... but this is inside story..

The main component is a DLL called AlienFXHook.dll which is written in VC++. It has 5 Export functions InitializeLibrary, StartHooking, StopHooking, EnableHook, DisableHook

This DLL is used to implement a System Wide WH_SHELL hook which is the core of the system. It interprets the system events and react upon it.

So what is the problem?? Ok.. as Command Center itself is written in .net which is platform independent it loads fine, but it tries to load AlienFXHook.dll into memory and being a 32bit DLL it fails.

I have managed to get assembly out of AlienFXHook.dll and analyzing it's functions. Luckily it is not a big file and has only 5 export functions. So re-writing it from scratch should not be that big deal.

Anybody here want to have a look at the Assembly and care about re-coding it in 64bit???

 

I would love to help, only I am not much of an expert on assembly, however, I am sure there are some around here who are. I was wondering if there might have been some kind of file in possibly C++ which might control the hex values for the lighting, perhaps another dll? Have you been able to pull the entirety of the VC++ Source in the dll? If so, I would think others would be able to help with some of the Exports...

 

You cannot decompile a Native DLL back to C++ or any other high level language. You can only get assembly out of it. Lightning and everything else is taken care in .net code which you can easily decompile and modify if needed.

Right now the hurdle is to get over the load failure of Native 32-bit DLL (AlienFXHook.dll)

 

Ah, this is the kind of thing I love to see. People trying to do something constructive with their hardware instead of simply complaining about some minor imperfections. Keep up the good work findvikas and hopefully you'll be an inspiration to other people.

 

One question: Did you actually ask Alienware for the source of AlienFXHook.dll ? After all it would be in their best interest give it over. I mean what better can they have then a developer that works for free?

If not, i'm gonna ask them, worth a try after all.

Cheers, WD

 

I never asked for it, you may give it a try. It's their Intellectual Property and I don't think they will agree to share it.

 

Great news guys... I got On Screen Keyboard working along with BinaryGFX and all Hotkeys as they will work on 32bit Vista... so lame if AW wanted it then they could have fixed it in 2 minutes. I will soon update my HOWTO Guide once I finish my testing on fresh install of 64bit. I just wish I had two m15x, dual booting is really pain.

 

BinaryGFX works now, see the updated guide.

 

Hay I already have vista Ultima 32 bit. Is there a cost to upgrade to 64 bit?

 

Yes, for some time atleast while I am working on 64 bit version of Command Center. Obviously you get better performance, see my signature for PCMark results on same hardware.

You keyboard lights will work but you wont be able to change their colors till I figure out whats going on deep down in the kernel threads.

 

Oh.. sorry if I misunderstood. You meant cost as in to buy the new version from MS? I don't think so Ultimate version comes with both media 32 bit and 64 bit. If you dont have 64bit you can call MS and get a new media for 64 bit and use the same product key to activate it

 

Cool deal and thank you. I will call in a day or so. Right now working on getting two 9800gt for my M17x and a secondary 320gb hard drive. For the 64 bit vista.

 

Thanks for your work, I will switch to 64 bit once you finish the FX mod.
I have a question, will I lose AW support/void warranty if I switch?

 

Good question... you will not
AW expect you to return the machine for repair with OEM hardware and software. So you have to install 32 bit and then return it. It will not VOID your warranty.

 

If you do not have Vista 64 bit and purchased only 32 bit media, don't worry as single license entitle you to both versions of Vista. You can order your 64bit Media online and that's too for FREE DELIVERY (some countries may charge you nominal delivery charges)

Order your 64bit Vista DVD or CDROM media here
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/compare-editions/64-bit.aspx

Go to the end of page and select your country.

 

Just talked to Kevin the guy at MS and he said that if you have Home Premium and was pre-installed you have to contact the computer manufacture or go out and buy the disc.
Darn.

 

Oopps did I mentioned that this does not applies if you have OEM version without the product key Does your OEM version came with media and product key ? If yes then try it on the above mentioned link else you need to buy yourself a new version.

 

Well it sort of does. The m15x comes with a Vista DVD (but it's one of those recovery type DVD's, though it still installs a fresh install of Vista, but it's not -exactly- a vista disk perse), and the product key is on the bottom of the laptop on a sticker.

 

I just tried with my OEM Product key and it gave me following error
"We're sorry, the following error(s) have occurred: No Offer Found!"

But if I try my retail key it gives me FREE DELIVERY option for either CD/DVD of both 32 and 64 bit version

 

Brilliant... I love myself I got AlienFX patched. It loads fine and works exactly like 32bit version. I am testing it for now, will test for some more time and then upload it here.

 

Awright... check out the updated guide. Command center works like a charm. My first project which met deadline and has all the features. I wish my official projects were so challenging and fun to work with.

Please report any bugs to me and I will take them

 

Good job Vikas! Just goes to show Alienware how lazy they really are and how little time it would have taken them to do if they were bothered

Tom

 

One more thing, ideally it should work with all Area51 machines. Can anyone confirm that if they have m17x or m9750?

 

Good job mate. I may just go try 64 bit now.
Ps. Im in ur orkut comm

 

this should be a sticky thread

 

Thank you very much findvikas. Appreciate all the efforts man, imagine how many people have been helped by the efforts of one person, thats just awesome. Now just waiting to get my m15x.

Turns out, that sometimes a lone person can be more productive than a big corporation with all that money and those fancy technicians/programmers.

 

Whoa, all features supported? Good job. Have any other m15x users tried the fix successfully?

 

I've been e-mailing and on the phone with Alienware and Microsoft all day trying to figure out how I can upgrade to 64 bit. Alienware says they don't carry the 64 bit software, and to contact Microsoft. Microsoft told me that since the software came pre installed, they cannot send me a 64 bit Vista dvd. And even if I were to obtain a disk, my cd key wouldn't work with it.

Can anybody confirm this? So anyone with an m15x can't upgrade to 64 bit unless they buy a brand new version of vista?

 

Just find a download of vista 64 somewhere and use the key on the sticker old chap