It appears to have fixed itself through no intervention of my own...

Hello Brownietheone!

Is great that you were able to fix it, However if the issue comes back I will recommend you to uninstall the command center, do a BIOS up date and then reinstall the command center again, that might help you.  

Part of the problem, as it has come back after I shut down and booted up this morning, is that explorer.exe becomes for all intents and purposes, unresponsive. While it was not fixed I was trying to uninstall command centre but couldn't as control panel would lock up when I tried.

I am having this exact same problem. Any advice to assist would be great.

Uninstalled Command center, reinstalled, restarted computer, got the following:

System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException (0x80010002): Call was canceled by the message filter. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80010002 (RPC_E_CALL_CANCELED))
   at System.Management.ThreadDispatch.Start()
   at System.Management.ManagementScope.Initialize()
   at System.Management.ManagementEventWatcher.Initialize()
   at System.Management.ManagementEventWatcher.Start()
   at AlienLabs.AlienFX.DeviceDiscovery.Classes.DeviceWatcherClass.StartHidDeviceInsertedWatcher()
   at AlienLabs.AlienFX.DeviceDiscovery.Classes.DeviceWatcherClass.Start()
   at AlienLabs.AlienFX.DeviceDiscovery.Classes.AlienFXDeviceDiscoveryService.RegisterForDevicesEvents()
   at AlienLabs.AlienFX.DeviceDiscovery.ObjectFactory.NewAlienFXDeviceDiscovery()
   at AlienLabs.AlienFX.Tools.Classes.ObjectFactory.get_DiscoveryService()
   at AlienLabs.AlienFX.Tools.Classes.ObjectFactory.NewAlienFXDeviceRepository()
   at AlienLabs.AlienFX.Tools.Classes.ObjectFactory.get_AlienFXDeviceRepository()
   at AlienLabs.AlienFX.Controller.LightsZoneController..ctor()
   at AlienLabs.AlienFX.Controller.ControllerMainForm.initializeLightController()
   at AlienLabs.AlienFX.Controller.ControllerMainForm..ctor()
   at AlienLabs.AlienFX.Controller.Program.Main(String[] args)

And my computer has windows explorer locked up. Can't open task manager, etc. Any suggestions???

Same problem here.

I even went back and reimaged to a Jun 6th image!!!! ...and the problem came back the next day (I did some software updates after I reimaged though). I'm going to reimage and not d/l any updates of any kind and see if it reapears... 

Also, I get an error msg when I try to apply A11 bios to my m18xR2 saying I need to override some engineering error...

In that case I will recommend doing an alienrespawn or a clean installation of windows, since there is a possibility that windows might be corrupted. 

In order to perform BIOS update is better if you open the folder that contains the driver, do a right click and run it as administrator 

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That didn't help. Excluding C:\Program Files\Alienware from Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) did the trick.

As this is only a workaround and it now leaves this directory vulnerable to viruses, is Dell working on an actual fix?

The fix I've had to use at the moment was to restore my system to the update before the most recent windows update. It poses a little bit of a security risk doing that, but I need this computer to work, so until there's a fix released this is going to have to be how I handle it.

Has a solution been found for this yet? have done the fresh install of command centre, but had no effect, have also done a system restore, but it just came back?

Dell needs to step up to the plate on this and fix the issue.  I have an Alien with the same issue and this is not acceptable for a "high end" pc.

Have any of you done a clean installation of windows? All those issues are related to software so I will recommend you to perform the clean installation of windows 

I have solved mine

Just uninstall Microsoft Security essentials, install a different AV {i just got Bitdefender 90 day FREE trial} the problem has now gone.

It gives Dell and Microsoft 90 days to find a solution  :-}