AlienWare's AlienGUIse messed things up real bad

Hello,

I will be the first to admit that AlienWare's AlienGUIse is not Stardock's Window Blinds. I must say that it does use an exe file (as seen in task manager) whose name makes me think there is a coding relationship (it was wb[something].exe). I am hoping I might find an answer here to my problem, since there is no answer in AlienWare's KB.

I have installed their Theme Manager and one of the free skins. All was working right until I tried to manually pin (drag and drop) an exe (AtomTime.exe) to the Start menu. It would not accept it. It looked like it would, as the shortcut link icon would appear, but it never added the name to the Start menu. I tried this several times, thinking each time was to no avail.

Now comes the problem. It turns out that for some unknown reason, every time thereafter that I clicked on some things (not all things) from the start menu, and also many different icons on the actual desk top, they all open up AtomTime.exe instead of what they are supposed to. There is no rhyme nor reason as to what works and what does not work. Some icons work, some shortcuts work, others do not. I have renamed AtomTime.exe for the time being, as I was tired of seeing it time and time again (no pun intented).

Here's the kicker to this.... since I renamed AtomTime.exe, and that is the only thing so many icons/shortcuts wants to look for (even though Properties of the items show the correct exe files), Windows now declares to me that "Windows cannot find ........"

Okay, fine. Next I figure that uninstalling would fix the problem. It will not let me uninstall in standard mode, but only safe mode. So I uninstall AlienWare's product in safe mode and reboot. All should be well, but no.

I think the alien's have taken over my computer now, as even with this sw removed, whether normal or safe mode, it continues to say the requested file cannot be found by Windows when I try to run various programs. And it even does it if you are in File Manager and clicking directly on the exact file! To futher show how wierd this is, if I click on Mozilla from the Start Menu, it will work, however, if I click on the Mozilla desktop icon, it will not work. They both have the same properties. I cannot get into my Control Panel items via any route, I cannot get TweakUI to work, the list goes on. Bugger all - it is such a pisser...

Naturally, I have run the full multi-hour long Scandisk with both correction options checked. Event Manager returned no errors/no problems found.

Here is where Alienware has the theme manager in case anyone wishes to have a look:

http://www.alienware.com/standalone_pages/invader.aspx

And you know what... I don't even own one of their computers (too overpriced)! I just wanted to try out the free skin. That'll teach me!

Thanks for any help!
Cheers,
Dobermann

 

Rename exe to com works - Re: AlienWare's AlienGUIse messed things up real bad

I'm still having major problems with this box. Tonight I discovered that if I rename the exe file to a com file, then click on it, it will work rather than the AtomTime.exe pgm that windows wants to always call. For example, renaming excel.exe to excel.com will work and bring up excel, but excel.exe brings up atomtime.

What in the world can be doing this? I have done searches for atomtime*.*, and nothing but the program comes up. I'm going to try to do regedit.com (could not do with exe), but not holding my breath.

Anyone have any suggestions please? I am really stumped and do not have the ability at this time to do a restore.



Thanks,
Dobermann

 

I don't believe it! Renaming regedit.exe to regedit.com, then double clicking on it brought up my buddy regedit! I was then able to F3 for all instances of AtomTime, delete them and reboot. I found where it had a file association of .exe "to be opened with AtomTime.exe."

What an absolute piece of crap the Alienware AlienGUIse is! Never again!

Anyhow, I am posting this fix here just in case someone someday has a similar problem. I'm so very, very glad that I thought of renaming the file extension to .com. Good ole DOS days still pays off!

Cheers,
Dobermann

 

Hi,

Been using the theme for nearly 2 years... and I didnt encounter any problem regarding start menu. Anyway tks for the tips just in case in future I might need it. Thanks.

Regards,
Liw

 

Not that I would wish you problems, and having first said try at your own risk, this is what started the problem (for me, too, all was working well until I did this):

If you are you brave enough (or perhaps silly enough ) to try the above with one of your exe files (preferably one that you did not "install", but that is just a plain standalone exe so you know you can wack it out of your registry without worrying about other problems), it would be interesting to see what happens on your system. Atomtime can be found at http://threeclicks.com/tinyApps.htm

If you do try it, I would be interested to know if it does the same thing to your computer. If you do not feel like trying it, no problem -- I certainly would understand!

Cheers,
Dobermann

 

I had problems with Alienguise too. It would not let NOD32 run properly.....so it had to go