S1 lighting control program (updated in 20240228)

[Groch]

Barry, thanks for your fast work on this. I have emailed you details/photo as requested.

The beta S1 LED version 1.2.0 you sent worked perfectly. No Quarantines.
I am using latest Windows and Original Installation on Original NVME Drive. This computer did previously Quarantine/Delete the original after update, and blocked the download of the previous version updated to this thread.

The beta as sent worked. It did raise the Unknown Program warning on 1st use. I moved the folder to C:Windows/OEM/ and made a desktop link which I think duplicates the original location.

Thanks!

P.S. - It would be nice if the LCD Control Program CYXTFTTool allowed for an AM/PM 12 hour clock option and brightness control and TFT Off options.

[barry777]

Barry, thanks for your fast work on this. I have emailed you details/photo as requested.

The beta S1 LED version 1.2.0 you sent worked perfectly. No Quarantines.
I am using latest Windows and Original Installation on Original NVME Drive. This computer did previously Quarantine/Delete the original after update, and blocked the download of the previous version updated to this thread.

The beta as sent worked. It did raise the Unknown Program warning on 1st use. I moved the folder to C:Windows/OEM/ and made a desktop link which I think duplicates the original location.

Thanks!

P.S. - It would be nice if the LCD Control Program CYXTFTTool allowed for an AM/PM 12 hour clock option and brightness control and TFT Off options.

Thank you very much for your feedback. We are checking the official version of the program and the S1 system. If there is any latest news, we will share it with you as soon as possible.

[hsehestedt]

Things are looking very good for me now. There's a few rough edges still but I have everything working on brand new clean install of Windows 11 Pro 23H2 (yes, the one released 2 days ago). I even have the screen working without having to logon.

[Gabe]

Things are looking very good for me now. There's a few rough edges still but I have everything working on brand new clean install of Windows 11 Pro 23H2 (yes, the one released 2 days ago). I even have the screen working without having to logon.

I just installed 23H2 on the spare SATA drive I've been using to test things, and it went well. No problems with Windows itself on the machine, nor with installing the drivers.

I downloaded and installed both the LED app and LCD screen app. With the LED app, I was able to get it so that it's added to the Start menu if I need to adjust anything. With the LCD screen app, I moved it to the folder it's in in the stock system, and used the Task Scheduler to make it start at logon. The default screens still don't work, but the Customizable ones do. I found a pleasant background image and shrunk it to use for the screen, as the customizable images the app comes with clash a bit with the info listed on it. Hopefully they'll be able to fix the default screen problem and create an installation script that installs it like it is in the stock system, so we won't need to do all of this other stuff to get it to work. Windows Defender didn't flag anything with either application.

With things going as well as they did, I'm next going to do the same with the stock NVMe drive.

Edit: It worked with the stock NVMe drive as well. So, now my S1 has 23H2.

[hsehestedt]

Gabe, just wanted to let you know that I have had great success with the new software.

I did a clean install of 22H3 and have the new screen control and LED software running on it. The LED software runs flawlessly. The screen control software runs <almost> perfectly. There are still some rough edges. But here is what I have:

The software now works with both the templates and the customized backgrounds. However, on the customized templates, when you add text manually to the screen, the old software had the ability to change the color of the text. That option is missing. Also, the single pixel issue is still present.

I added the screen control software to Task Scheduler to start the screen control software without the need for the user to logon. As a result, it runs and updates the screen without the need to logon. By running with highest privileges that also eliminates the UAC prompt for the CPU monitoring executable (sorry, I don't have that filename in front of me).

So, I'm quite happy with the progress. It's looking really good.

I do a lot of testing so clean installs of specific builds is important to me. It's nice to have this working now with clean installs.

[Gabe]

The software now works with both the templates and the customized backgrounds. However, on the customized templates, when you add text manually to the screen, the old software had the ability to change the color of the text. That option is missing. Also, the single pixel issue is still present.

Were you able to get the default screens to work? If so, how? They still don't work with mine.

Default.png (95.89 KiB) Viewed 31554 times

I also noticed that, after a restart, the program loses the customized background that I added and chose.

Customized.png (113.45 KiB) Viewed 31554 times

However, and it must again be due to the unit's memory, the chosen background still shows on the actual screen.

LCD Screen.jpg (168.95 KiB) Viewed 31554 times

I did notice that about the text, but I hadn't tried it on the stock install. I chose the logon option with the Task Scheduler as it was what it showed in the directions I used. I had never used the Task Scheduler before, so I followed instructions I found on a website. With that said, I have my unit set up to automatically logon to a local account anyway, so it works for me. I don't use a password or anything.

Clean installs are definitely nice. Starting out new and without all of the 'baggage' from the previous install. I almost never upgrade in place.

[hsehestedt]

Gabe, I do indeed have the default screens working. As for the custom screens, I did not try to bring in another image yet. I will try that when I'm back in front of that system. I had only tried the backgrounds that were provided with the program so far.

Here is what I did: I first installed the Visual C Redistributable. Then I dropped the files for the new version into a folder under "My Documents" called "Screen Control". I didn't even put it in the original location although that would have been what I would try next if it was not working.

At that point it would work already, but I then set it up to automatically start (I'll provide details on that later). Basically, I used Task Scheduler to run it at system startup (not at user logon).

[Gabe]

Here is what I did: I first installed the Visual C Redistributable. Then I dropped the files for the new version into a folder under "My Documents" called "Screen Control". I didn't even put it in the original location although that would have been what I would try next if it was not working.

At that point it would work already, but I then set it up to automatically start (I'll provide details on that later). Basically, I used Task Scheduler to run it at system startup (not at user logon).

I'll give that a try.

[hsehestedt]

Not good. I am now having major problems with it. I was trying to help someone with an issue earlier today and in the process I re-imported all the original drivers back to the system. That's the only thing I can think of causing the issues I am now seeing.

Basically whether I select either a default theme or a custom background, I get this sort of display:

Screenshot.jpg (2.72 MiB) Viewed 31521 times

Rats. I had not imaged the system yet. Okay, gonna reinstall now

[Gabe]

I deleted all of the traces of the LCD program, including the scheduled task, re-extracted it, put it in the new folder, set the task scheduler to run the program at startup, and restarted. Nothing.

I ended up going back to running it on logon. For some reason setting it to run on startup doesn't trigger it to run on mine. Either that or I'm just doing something wrong. I have it working again, but it's still the same with the default screens, so I'm using a Customized screen again. I didn't go through all of the extra folder creation and renaming stuff like I did before. I just moved the extracted folder into a folder named "LCD Panel Control" I created inside the Program Files folder in C.

Interestingly enough, when I went to download the LCD program again it showed "No preview available. File is in owner's trash." Maybe they've removed it to fix it. Luckily I still had it on a USB flash drive.

They need to both fix the program and create an installer so everything is installed the way it should be. Or at least fix the program and then create a video giving us step by step instructions for its installation, including any of the extra stuff that needs to be done, from the first click to the last, so that it runs like it did with the factory image.

Edit: I haven't yet tried installing the factory image, but I think I'm going to on the m.2 SATA drive, just for the heck of it. Maybe I can do some digging around in that to see just how the LCD program is installed, and how it's triggered to run. Maybe I can also extract it to put on the clean install of 23H2 on the stock NVMe drive.