Another bunch of bugs into AWCC AlienFX SDK.

Thank you for sharing this with the community!

I hope you have a great day.

You are welcome!

I just developing a bunch of applications, making AlienFX effects working not only in games, but at everyday tasks (audio, video, CLI control, etc).

You can check current versions at GitHub, if you wish - https://github.com/T-Troll/alienfx-tools

Hi @T-Troll as reported by many Dell users/customers the AWCC Suite refuses to install any of the AlienFX applications. Despite many requests within Dell community posts and Dell Cares saying that their AWCC installer has problems that they are trying to fix, Dell has consistently failed to provide a separate AlienFX installer. Our Alienware 17 Laptop has preinstalled AlienFX hardware that has never worked because the Dell AWCC always fails to detect any of the many LEDs. So we welcome the proposed GitHub Alienfx-tools Here that Dell Cares seemingly cannot provide. We look forward to getting our preinstalled AlienFX LED Lights working. 

Hi @T-Troll  we have visited GitHub T-Troll / alienfx-tools and also see reference to the HunterZ / UniLight application. We have an Alienware 17 R5 Laptop that should have AlienFX v2.0 installed to get the LED lights to work. Although we note that UniLight was designed for 17 R3, it might work on our 17 R5. However, UniLight detailed status says it failed. 

We have asked the Dell Community Here if it was possible to extract the AlienFX 2.0 applications from the Dell AWCC installer and force their installation. Hopefully T-Troll / alienfx-tools will also cater for AlienFX v2.0. 

Great Job!

Hopefully it works out.

Hi @T-Troll we installed the x64 latest supported Visual C++ from Here. Although there was no system error when trying the alienfx-tools 0.4.2 applications, the Alienfx lights did not start to work. Guess that alienfx-tools are not 17 R5 ready at this time. Please continue to develop your alienfx-tools and hopefully we will get our keyboard LED lights working in the near future. 

Hi @T-Troll GitHub has released alienfx-tools 0.4.2 Here and we wanted to see if it works. Our 17 R5 wants AlienFX version 2 to enable the LED lights. This new laptop arrived with no working LED lights out of the transit box. It would be great if the keyboard lights worked. 

The alienfx-tools 0.4.2.zip file was unpacked to give the alienfx-cli.exe and alienfx-haptics.exe applications. We are unsure which one to use on our 17 R5 because there was no ReadMe.txt file. So we tried both with the same resulting system error. The VCRUNTIME140_1.dll is not included in the zip file. Is this system error to be expected and is there a solution to get your alienfx-tools to work on our 17 R5 AlienFX v2.0 LED lights? 

VCRUNTIME ERROR:

That means you need to install Node.js plugin using the Microsoft visual studio download to install it.

https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/thank-you-downloading-visual-studio/?sku=Community&rel=16

Hello @T-Troll Alienware 17 R5 Laptop wants AlienFX v2.0 installed, but AWCC Suite installer fails to install any of the AlienFX v2.0 applications for our laptop's preinstalled AlienFX hardware. It would be great if the keyboard lights could be switched on.

Good luck with development of your alienfx-tools.exe application. 

@Alienware Area-51 ALX 2006  @crimsom 

With the of updates that under standard conditions continue to break AWCC, I've had at least a few chances to test and refine.  I've found that it really comes down to completely uninstalling what you have in place the first time using Revo Uninstaller and then having UAC disabled for the entire install process (as well as installing on an account with admin privileges).

No need to follow the whole process for updates after that, just disabling UAC for installation of new AWCC updates and then running the software (after opening AWCC it usually has to download OC Controls component updates) seems to be all that's necessary.  I don't even think I bothered with the built in administrator account the last time or two.  Make sure to reboot after disabling UAC before installing the update and again after re-enabling UAC when done with everything.

@crimsom,

this guy fixed his by doing this:

I installed by downloading the Control Center and OC Controls from Dell's site rather than the Windows store because for whatever reason they were still giving me errors on the OC Controls additional install prompt. Once that was confirmed I had an idea, so I switched over to my main account and saw as far as my account was concerned it wasn't installed at all. I then turned UAC off completely via regedit (navigate to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System" and set EnableLUA to 0), rebooted, logged back in to my account, and installed Alienware Control Center from the Windows Store. After that installed, I launched it and got the no AlienFX devices detected and then the prompt to install some addons (audio, FX, and OC I think?) and followed the prompts to do that, though it requested me confirm my identity for each add on. They installed and I relaunched the Control Center and AlienFX and light controls finally worked in my account again!

I went back to the registry and changed EnableLUA back to 1 to reenable and rebooted. Logged back in as my user and the Control Center didn't show up as installed again. What I was thinking was maybe there was some file access UAC was denying during the install process for some files that were needed and by installing with UAC completely turned off under my account first, I was able to fix that. I went ahead and reinstalled the Control Center from the Windows Store and got the prompts again to install the three other components and followed through with that and found that AlienFX was now back and fully functional for me under my regular account!

I've wasted so much time on this for half a year, I'm happy to have come to a resolution as I've done the uninstall and reinstall process Dell outlined so many times using both the Windows Store and Dell's direct download with no luck (including earlier today before reading what BobNoNickname said in this thread). I hope this can help Dell narrow down the issue with their software and/or get some more people with features they paid for functional again without having to waste any more time with steps that more often than not seem to be outright ineffective.

@McScruffy.

Thanks for replying!

Hi @McScruffy your AWCC install process is very promising and was deployed months ago. Inexplicably your process was not our 17 R5 salvation.

The Dell AlienFX v2.0 Tester is not available as a separate installer and the Dell Alienware diagnostics are not sufficiently smart that they actually test the LED lights. 

Many Dell Alienware Community threads say incorrect AWCC installer code is preventing installation of the AlienFX applications.