PIXELDECK

You found the drive. This is the software.

The PixelDeck companion

One Windows program, offered two ways. No account, no service left running behind your back. Your deck already works without it: every tile fires its shortcut off the card whether this is running or not.

No public build is on the shelf yet. If you were sent here by a deck, the software is coming — leave an address on the waitlist and you will hear once.

Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit · version not yet published · SHA-256 checksums

Which one?

The installer asks whether to install for everyone on the PC or just for you. Choose just for me and it never asks for administrator rights. Either way you get PixelDeck Studio on the Start Menu and a normal entry in Add or Remove Programs, and your profiles live in %APPDATA%\PixelDeck where an upgrade cannot tread on them.

The portable ZIP is the same program with nothing to install. Unzip it and run it. It keeps its profiles, settings and log in the folder you unzipped, so it travels on a stick and leaves the machine exactly as it found it — which also makes it the one to reach for when you are diagnosing somebody else's PC.

Windows will warn you. Here is why.

! “Windows protected your PC”

PixelDeck is not code-signed, so SmartScreen shows a blue warning the first time you run it — and it will do the same again for each new version. A certificate is a statement about who published a file, not about what the file does. Without one there is nothing for Windows to recognise, and it says so rather than guessing.

To continue: More info → Run anyway. The installer asks for administrator rights only if you choose to install for everyone on the PC; just for me needs none, and the portable ZIP needs none either.

You do not have to take our word for which file you got. Every release publishes SHA-256 checksums, and on Windows: 

Get-FileHash .\PixelDeck-Setup-x64.exe    compare the hash against checksums.txt

Only ever take these files from pixeldeck.kristou.com. A macro deck types on your keyboard for a living, which is exactly why you should not run one you found somewhere else.

First run

Plug the deck in, then open PixelDeck Studio from the Start Menu. It starts the tray app for you if one is not already running, which is the part that keeps the deck fed with live telemetry and switches profiles to follow whatever you are working in.

Everything Studio does is also a command, which is what you want when something is wrong. Open a terminal in the folder you installed to — or unzipped into: 

.\pixeldeck.exe init     starter profiles: default, chrome, code, outlook
.\pixeldeck.exe sync     compile them and push to the card over USB
.\pixeldeck.exe studio   the editor: drag tiles around a picture of your deck
.\pixeldeck.exe run      the tray app: live telemetry, profiles that follow your work

After that, run is the only one you need — it lives in the notification area and its icon lights up when a deck is connected. Turn on Start with Windows from its menu and you can forget it exists.

  1. The panel is off-axis dark? .\pixeldeck.exe brightness 60, then sync again. It is a TN panel and the value is baked into the art.
  2. Touches land next to where you pressed? .\pixeldeck.exe calibrate — four corner taps, stored on the unit itself. It survives reflashing and swapping the card.
  3. Something else? .\pixeldeck.exe selftest runs nine checks and prints a report you can paste at support.

Where your files live

Profiles, settings and the log all sit in one directory, and which one depends on how you got the program: 

installed   %APPDATA%\PixelDeck\
portable    beside pixeldeck.exe, in the folder you unzipped

A file called portable.txt inside the ZIP is the whole difference, so a portable copy stays portable wherever you move it — and unzipping one onto a machine that already has an installed copy gives you two independent sets of profiles rather than one quietly writing over the other.

Uninstalling leaves %APPDATA%\PixelDeck alone unless you tick the box that offers to remove it. Your profiles are your work.

Updates

The companion carries the firmware it was built against, and writes it over the same cable with .\pixeldeck.exe flash. There is nothing else to install and no second tool to find. Every page is read back and compared before the deck is allowed to leave the bootloader.

Firmware and companion are versioned together — update both, or the deck will say so on its own screen rather than misbehaving quietly.