Where exactly does PiX.exe come from?

Silver · December 20, 2016, 9:59pm

And what kind of information does it share?;p

Sjef · December 21, 2016, 3:07am

It seems user “Jason” came up with it. He posted he “had gotten it from a friend”.

I’ve just loaded up the file in my debugger, can’t really see what it does. Once thing that makes me really suspicious is that it’s using “SetProcessDEPPolicy”, which is generally used by viruses to circumvent windows DEP.

That doesn’t mean it’s a virus, but it is suspicious.

Also it’s decompressing something or at least contains a decompressor. Again not necessarily something evil but it could be used to hide things.

Sjef · December 21, 2016, 3:32am

The only thing I’ve found is that it processes:

C:\ProgramData\pimax\piconfig\piq\config.dat
C:\ProgramData\pimax\piconfig\pif\config.dat
C:\Program Files\Piplay\PiConfig\config.dat

These files just contain 4 bytes:
01 00 01 00

or

00 00 01 00

Maybe it’s used to lock resolution ? It’s getting late here but tomorrow I’ll mess around with them.

Also, it spawns a ‘pix.tmp’ which probably is the decompressed ‘payload’. This pix.tmp accesses the above files.

Silver · December 21, 2016, 4:11am

Does it effect your computer desktop or just piplay related files? I saw someone mention he had some issues after running it.

oma · December 21, 2016, 7:03am

Im interested about this too, i’ve installed it without any problems no processes are acting suspicious, no suspicious data is being sent or received if firewall/antivirus is to be believed in. It is not running as background process… I would like to hear official statement from Pi crew about this and could we get the unlocked resolution without third party unknown apps.

Sjef · December 21, 2016, 3:14pm

Ok guys, I have figured out what pix.exe does The thing is that there’s a config file on your PC:

C:\Program Files\Piplay\PiConfig

This config file contains only 4 bytes. After a normal install it will contain:

00 00 01 00.

This indicates the software the resolution in Extended mode should be locked to 1080p.

Now what PIX.exe does is it copies C:\ProgramData\pimax\piconfig\piq\config.dat to overwrite the above config file. This time it contains:

01 00 01 00.

Now you see it flipped the first byte from 00 to 01. This tells the software that it should unlock the resolution in extended mode.

So in short, you don’t need pix.exe. You can just use a hexeditor to change that first 00 to 01 in your C:\ProgramData\pimax\piconfig\piq\config.dat. If you don’t have a hexeditor you can manually copy the file C:\ProgramData\pimax\piconfig\piq\config.dat to overwrite C:\ProgramData\pimax\piconfig\piq\config.dat

Next if you flip to pimax mode and then back to extended mode your resolution will be unlocked. All without the pix.exe tool

Sjef · December 21, 2016, 3:23pm

BTW, so we now now that the first byte in the config file is a boolean to lock/unlock resolution in Extended mode. The interesting question now though is: what do those other 3 bytes represent ? I’m betting they’re all Boolean (true/false) so they probably should all be 0 or 1. But what do they represent ? I’ll mess around with them

Silver · December 21, 2016, 6:43pm

Your directory instructions are a little confusing. I installed mine to a different directory than normal.

What I have is H:\Pi\Piplay\PiConfig\Config.Dat
Which I assume is your first directory.

On the C drive it also created a folder here
C:\ProgramData\pimax
but there is no piconfig folder. and no piq
Should I assume by adding piconfig\piq
it will work?

Actually just tried and no visual change to my eyes.

Sjef · December 21, 2016, 8:09pm

Download a hex editor and change the first byte of H:\Pi\Piplay\PiConfig\Config.Dat into 01.

That’s it

Silver · December 21, 2016, 10:25pm

How exactly can one confirm that it is running in a higher resolution. Or am I missing an option to actually change the resolution?

Sjef · December 21, 2016, 10:28pm

You can’t change the resolution size out of the box. You can after you’ve flipped that byte to 1 in the config file.

Silver · December 21, 2016, 10:41pm

So you assume that it is changed for what the next game or video you play? where do you see the ability to adjust resolution?

Sjef · December 22, 2016, 12:04am

Extended mode means the headset functions as a 2nd monitor and the desktop is extended onto it. So change the resolution like you change your monitor’s resolution. Google is your friend.

Silver · December 22, 2016, 4:03am

I see thanks. I worried that if that were the case it would not allow such a thing if my monitor was not 2k +. But looks like it already defaulted to the 1440 resolution. Not sure why higher does not work though.

Sjef · December 22, 2016, 4:57am

I’ve just tried support on Skype. These guys don’t speak English so they run everything thing you say through some translator. And it takes ages for them to reply. In short, I have learned nothing. I have no idea if this even can be fixed.