alienfx VS ExplorerPatcher

Hey. I recently installed pop on an alienware laptop and forgot to change the key lights before I obliterated windows. As a result of this - if the computer is on, the keyboard lights are on, and they shine a beautiful bright blue hue. I'd like to either make that a dim red or be able to turn it on and off. I tried alienfx for linux but it did not work for me. I looked through a few alternatives and it looks like they all operate in a similar way. It looks like I want to use python or c (probably python for something like this) and send codes like these to something. I'm not super familiar with this area of hardware/programming. I have no problem slowly going through these different tools and eventually figuring it out, but if there is an up to date / modern alternative to alienfx or some easy way to do what I have described, I'd love to save some time and frustration.

I had success with alienfx. Check if your device is supported here https://github.com/trackmastersteve/alienfx/blob/master/docs/Knowledgebase/Devicelist.md

Linux users need to have Windows installed just to tweak a fan setting or a keyboard lighting (You might be lucky if your system is supported by this but damn it give Linux users some support too)

You can use https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher to change the hotkey

> Windows 11 brings absolutely nothing on the table

It also removes a leg from the table, the one labelled 'usability'.

Attaching a 3rd-party leg to fill the gap helps (https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher), but it's not an ideal solution

ExplorerPatcher

I had more problems with it being wide, merging all app windows in a single icon, showing only icon rather then app title, and not being able to move to top of screen

That may be fixed with https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher which restores win10 bar, there's no builtin solution to any of the above afaik

Thanks for letting me know. I looked into it, and apparently it's still even possible to activate on later versions of Windows with registry edits and helper software: https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher/discussions/167

Not going to install something that seems so vague, but I do use ExplorerPatcher [1] on my Windows 11 machines to basically re-create Windows 10 UI and fix all of the annoyances I have with Windows 11. I've got the old right click menu, the old task bar, the old alt-tab interface, pretty much the whole thing. Only reason I use Windows 11 over Windows 10 is because Windows 11 seems to handle my triple monitor setup better, especially when waking up from sleep.

[1] - https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher