Hacking 7MC

Replace Default Movie Strip With Media Browser Strip

2009-04-23T01:52:00Z

Currently, there is no way to replace the native movie library in the Movies start menu strip. Also, Windows 7 Media Center doesn’t allow for the addition of extra plug-ins to the default strips. What can we do to replace the default movie library menu strip then? We’ll remove the movie strip and simply replace it with a strip of our own creation which includes the Media Browser plug-in.

To get this done a few files have been created which can be downloaded here. The first one is a patch that will enable turning the default movies strip on and off through a registry setting. This patch has only been tested under the official Windows 7 beta 1 (build 7000) at this point but should work under any version. As always, it’s highly recommended that you backup your files (in this case C:\Windows\ehome\ehres.dll) before modifying any system files.

Also included are a number of registry files for altering the start menu strip setup. Two of the files allow for the turning on and off of the default movies strip and another set of files for turning on and off the new Media Browser movies strip. The last registry file will remove the default strip and add the new Media Browser strip at once.

To enable using these registry files you’ll need to download and apply this patch. For the patch to be installed it’s also necessary to take ownership of the (C:\Windows\ehome\ehres.dll) file. If you haven’t already, install the “Take Ownership” registry fix by double-clicking “take ownership.reg” included in the download zip. Then you will need to right-click the ehres.dll file and select “Take Ownership”.

Once you’ve successfully taken ownership of the ehres.dll file and applied the patch file included in the download zip you can now use the registry files included in the options folder of the zip to modify whether or not the movies strip is enabled. As well as turn on or off the new Media Browser Movies strip. To both enable the new movies strip and disable the old native movies strip apply the “Add Media Browser Strip and Remove Movies.reg” file to your registry.

Unfortunately, at this time it’s not possible to transfer the default movie trailers, play DVD or other movies strip entries to the new strip. But you can follow these directions to include other plug-ins in your new movies strip. The category for this new strip in the registry is “Media Browser”.

That’s all there is to it, now just sit back and relax knowing you’ll never need to explain to anyone why they “shouldn’t use that movie library use that one” and then where to find it.

Getting Movie Trailers Inside Media Browser

2009-04-21T18:00:00Z

One of the most popular movie library plug-ins for Media Center recently added a new theme to it’s default install called Vanilla. Hidden inside this new theme is the ability to add movie trailers to the information screen for each movie. It’s not very simple and you’ll need to download the trailers manually but this is definitely a nice feature to have. Be sure to have one of the recent betas (2.0.10.0+) and turn on the Vanilla theme.

First you will need to download movie trailers to use with Media Browser. The easiest way to get them is to use a program such as HD Movie Trailer Downloader or Get Trailers. Download the trailers for each movie and place it inside that movie’s folder (or anywhere else you’d like to store them).

Once you’ve got your trailers downloaded it’s necessary to tell Media Browser where to find them. The Vanilla theme uses the old MyMovies.xml to find the location of trailers for each movie. You don’t need MyMovies installed or even the complete MyMovies.xml file to use this feature though. Just create a mymovies.xml file in each movies directory and place the following inside:

<Title>
<LocalTrailer>
<URL>C:\Users\Public\Videos\HD Movies\Bangkok Dangerous\trailer.mov</URL>
<Type>1</Type>
</LocalTrailer>
</Title>

Now change the URL value to the location of the movie trailer for this movie and save the file. Be sure to save the file as “mymovies.xml” not “mymovies.xml.txt”. This will instruct the Vanilla theme that there is a trailer available for this movie and where it can be found.

Then just load up Media Browser and browse to that movie. You should now see an icon on the left hand side for the trailer. Press this button and Media Browser will begin to play the trailer for this movie in a small window above the movie information.

This could be an indispensible feature for those who find themselves forgetting exactly what a movie is about and aren’t into reading those drawn out synopsis descriptions. Plus there aren’t many better ways to convince others (like your wife!) that your movie selection is, in fact, worth watching.

Get the latest tips and tricks for Media Browser by subscribing to the Hack7MC RSS Feed or Follow on Twitter to get the most recent Media Center hacks!

Color Channel Logos for My Channel Logos

2009-04-14T22:04:00Z

My Channel Logos is a great program that allows you to add channel logos to your TV guide listings in Windows 7 Media Center. Unfortunately, by default My Channel Logos only includes white/blue channel logos for use with the program. What if you want to add color logos to your TV guide listings? It’s possible to create and add them to your channel listings yourself.

These icons look especially good on Astroytoy7’s black theme who has also created a small pack of premade color channel icons which you can download from the Australian Media Center Community Forums. For even more pre-made icon sets visit the brand new Color Icon Download Page on Hack7MC too!

First you’ll need to get color versions of the channel logos for your channel lineup. A good resource for downloading channel logos can be found at iconharmony.com. To download logos select the 8xx option from the front page then select the checkbox next to each channel in your lineup. Once you’ve got your channels selected press the “Zip Icons” button to get a zip file containing your channel logos. You’re limited to 48 icons per zip file so you may need more than one zip to fit all of your icons from the site.

We’ll need to edit the logos slightly to create transparent backgrounds for them as well. You’ll need an image editing program such as paint.net to edit the images for use in Media Center. Extract the images to your hard drive and then, using paint.net, open each one. The black background will need to be removed on each logo.

Use the magic wand tool to select the black area of each logo and hit delete. There should now be a grey and white background to the logo which indicates a transparent area. Now save the logo as a .png file, by default images downloaded from iconharmony.com are .jpg so you will need to change the file type when saving.

Now open Windows Explorer and navigate to the My Channel Logos directory in Program Files (or Program Files x86 on 64-bit machines). Inside the My Channel Logos folder should be another folder named “Logos”. This folder contains all the channel logos used in the TV guide. You will need to locate the logo you’re replacing and name the color logo with the same filename as the original My Channel Logos file.

If you have run My Channel Logos before, you can navigate to “\ProgramData\MyChannelLogos” instead to replace the existing channel logos. Otherwise, you’ll need to repopulate the logos using the My Channel Logos program.

Replace the original white logo with the new color logo and run My Chanel Logos to make sure the new color logo is being loaded correctly. Alternatively, you can also assign each color logo from inside My Channel Logos manually. That’s all there is to it! This will take some work to complete but for those looking for color channel logos it’s worth the effort.

Even better! Created a bunch of color channel icons for your area? Upload it to Hack7MC and share it with others on the Color Channel Logo download page.

Beginners Fine Tuning & Tweaking Comskip

2009-04-08T09:08:00Z

Comskip is the default commercial detection software for most commercial skipping Media Center programs. In some cases to get optimal results you will need to tweak the settings to get the best results for your situation. There is no GUI for editing comskip’s settings and instead it must be done through a settings file named comskip.ini in the same folder as comskip.exe.

First thing you’ll need is a file or two to test comskip detection on. To get these you’ll need to convert a few recorded shows to DVR-MS. The comskip guide suggests using a small and large file, say a 30 minute show and an hour one. You may also want to check to make sure you have the latest version of comskip from the official site.

Once you have your test files create a shortcut to comskip and then open the properties for that shortcut. In the Target input box add “-w” without the quotes and save the shortcut. Now drag and drop your first test file onto the shortcut. Comskip will begin to process the file with a window displaying a number of graphs and the show in the background in black and white.

After the process has completed you’ll be able to navigate the timeline by clicking this screen. The far left being the beginning of the timeline and the far right being the end of the time line, navigate through and find point where commercials begin and end then note the graphs at these points.

Take a look at the image below for an idea of what some of the graphs represent. This is how we will determine which methods to use when detecting commercials. If you notice that the channel logo detection and aspect ratio change on each commercial change those may be good methods of detection for you.

Here you can see that there are a number of areas where various graphs drop out. The aspect ratio changes and channel logo is no longer detected at these positions and may provide a reliable detection method for this channel or show (default comskip installs include a “PostProcessing.bat” that demonstrates per channel ini loading).

To set these as the default detection methods open up comskip.ini in a text editor such as notepad. The first line of your ini file should include a variable called “detect_method”. This method should be set to a number which is the sum of the detection methods you’d like comskip to use. For instance, Aspect ratio is 32 and logo detection is 2 so the detect_method would be 34. Here are a list of available detection methods in the current comskip distribution:

1=black frame, 2=logo, 4=scene change, 8=fuzzy logic, 16=closed captions, 32=aspect ration, 64=silence, 128=cutscenes, 255=all

If you notice that comskip is routinely cutting off a few seconds of the show before or after a commercial break there are a few settings to help you easily adjust for this. First the “padding”setting allows you to add a certain number of seconds to the beginning and end of commercial breaks that will not be cut. If you want comskip to remove more instead of adding assign remove_before and remove_after with the number of seconds to be removed.

You may also want to alter the minimum amount of time for a block to be considered a commercial. To do this find min_commercial_break and max_commercial_break, these two variable define in seconds the minimum and maximum times to consider a block as commercials. For instance, if a commercial break is only 25 seconds and min_commercial_break is set to 30 seconds this wouldn’t be considered a commercial break.

These basic tips should have you on your way to fine tuning your comskip settings to suit your recordings. For even more information check out the official guide to tuning comskip or the comskip tuning forums. Also, be sure to check back with Hack7MC for more tuning guides in the future!

Download Theme: Flying Whales

2009-04-03T04:22:00Z

What better way to celebrate Earth Month and Hack7MC’s new house warming than with a new Media Center theme? Featuring shots from the excellent background files of the same name from Deviant Art member vhm-alex. This theme features the two whales seen in vhm-alex’s works prominently in each of Media Center’s sections. Check out a few screenshots then download this theme to give it a shot on your Media Center.

Installation:

This theme doesn’t include an installer and may require you to take ownership of the ehres.dll file manually using the “Take Ownership” registry fix. Download and apply the registry file then navigate to “C:\Windows\ehome\” and right-click ehres.dll. Select “Take Ownership” to take ownership of the file.

Also, make a backup of your ehres.dll file and place it somewhere safe. The patch program should create a backup file named ehres Backup1.dll but there’s no reason to not keep an extra backup on hand.

Download the Flying Whales patch file below and copy the patch file to the “C:\Windows\ehome” directory. Right-click the patch file and select “Run as Administrator”. Inside the patch program select the start button to begin the patching process. Once complete launch Media Center to verify success.

Uninstallation:

Replace ehres.dll with the “ehres Backup1.dll” file created by the patch process. Alternatively, replace the file with the backup you created before applying the patch.

Download: Download Flying Whales Theme from Hack7MC (39.9mb)

Windows Media Foundation and Windows 7

2009-03-27T07:06:00Z

Windows 7 introduces some additional functionality to a feature that was added in Windows Vista, Windows Media Foundation. The goal of the Windows Media Foundation is to ease control of media playback for developers. The idea is to remove the need for individual codecs and instead rely on a single Windows package for media playback, much like DirectX does for game platforms.

In Windows 7, as noted on Microsoft MSDN, there have been some additional changes made to the Windows Media Foundation framework.

What's New in Windows 7

Microsoft Media Foundation was introduced in Windows Vista as the replacement for DirectShow. Of course, DirectShow is still supported in Windows 7, but developers are encouraged to use Media Foundation in their new digital media applications.

The improvements to Media Foundation can be summarized as follows:

Better format support, including MPEG-4

Support for capture devices and hardware codecs

A simplified programming model

Improvements to the platform

We are all fairly well aware that Windows 7 includes native support for certain formats, such as H.264, and it does this through the use of Windows Media Foundation. Media Center and Windows Media Player have both been updated to use this new framework in Windows 7. The benefit is added support for a number of codecs out of the box.

There is, however, a downside to this new implementation. The protected pipeline used in this new framework doesn’t allow outside access to user installed codecs for native formats by default. For instance, if you wanted to use FFDShow to decode avi files, which are natively supported by WMF. This means much like the (often indefinite) wait for x64 codecs and splitters users will once again be put to the sidelines to wait for updated decoders that use WMF.

Current work-arounds for this situation have led users to renaming system files and other chicanery in order to get their favorite codecs working through Media Center. In more recent versions of Windows 7’s beta, however, the ability to accomplish this hack has been crippled. The consensus seems to be that as of beta 7057, the rename hack no longer works.

It seems that once again users may be forced to wait on new solutions to the codec problem that have already been hard suffered for Windows Vista Media Center users. It seems we may once again be at the whim of those gracious programs who take it upon themselves to better Microsoft’s meager implementations and give us a little more control of our media.

Expect updates on Windows Media Foundation and Windows 7 Media Center in the near future. Keep up to date on the situation by subscribing to the Hack7MC RSS Feed or by following on Twitter.

Backup and Restore Recording Schedule in Windows 7 Media Center

2009-03-25T19:17:00Z

The ability to backup and restore your recording schedule and guide listings in Media Center is something that will be necessary at some point for almost anyone. Unfortunately, up to this point Media Center doesn’t make it easy for the end user. On the bright side it isn’t very complicated either, you just need to know where to look.

Back ‘Em Up!

To begin with, Media Center creates backup files every time you schedule a new show or make modifications to the guide listings, you just need to find them. To get to the files you will need to enable the viewing of hidden folders, then open Windows Explorer and navigate to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\eHome (by default). Inside you will find a folder, or series of folders, for each tuner you have installed marked “mcepgX-X-X”. Inside each of these folders you will find a backup folder containing backup files for listings, recordings, and subscriptions.

For each type of backup there will be a number of files inside named with a timestamp. The timestamp format is as follows:" “year month day – hour minutes seconds”. This makes it very simple to locate your most recent files. Luckily the files aren’t large at all however and you could easily backup the whole lot in most cases. For restoring the recording schedule only the latest file in recordings is needed.

Put ‘Em Back!

Once you’ve completed your reinstall of Windows 7, open Media Center and run through the setup as usual. Assuming no hardware changes or driver changes between reinstalls we should be set to continue. Retrieve your backup recordings file and copy it to your hard disk.

The file doesn’t need to be anywhere specific but placing it in the backups folder in your new “C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\eHome\mcepgx-x-x\” directory is probably a best practice. Now we will need to tell Media Center we’d like to load the information from the file. This is done through a program included in Windows 7 called “loadmxf” located in the “\Windows\ehome\” directory.

You can either open a command prompt by typing “cmd” into the start menu box or create a shortcut with the following text: “C:\Windows\ehome\loadmxf.exe –i FILELOCATION”. Replace the FILELOCATION with the location of the file to be loaded.

If using a shortcut, double-click to execute the command before continuing. Otherwise the recording schedule should be loaded into Media Center now. Loading lineup and subscription data from previous installs breaks things currently, so don’t do it!

Load ‘Em Up!

Once you’ve loaded the files back into Media Center you can see that your shows will be listed under series’ in Recorded TV’s Scheduled Recordings but no shows will be scheduled yet. Before we can load these you should be sure to have your channel lineup completed in the Media Center TV Guide. To get the proper times for each scheduled show you will need to reload Guide data.

To do this go to “Tasks > TV > Guide > Get Latest Guide Listings” and wait for the guide data to finish downloading. Then re-check your scheduled shows in Recorded TV. You should now see shows listed on the schedule to be recorded.

Congratulations. You have successfully backed up and restored your scheduled recordings.

Rawhide!

Hack7MC sticks to your ribs and won’t let ya’ down, be sure to follow along with our RSS Feed and leave us a note sayin’ you were here down below!

Add Channel Logos to 7MC with the latest My Channel Logos

2009-03-24T16:56:27Z

Though we’ve looked at this handy program for adding channel logos to your Windows Media Center TV Guide when it was first released, it has undergone a number of improvements and increased support since it’s release. Since it’s initial offering, My Channel Logos has added the ability to detect affiliate stations such as those associated with ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX. Quite a few extra channel logos have been added for various countries, auto-populating logos has been optimized and support for Dish Network has been introduced as well.

To get rolling with My Channel Logos download the program from the website and install. This is also an improvement over previous version which didn’t include an installer. Once up and running, you’ll need to set the area your in from the “Edit > Preferences”. If you haven’t set up your tuner yet, you will need to do that as well prior to running My Channel Logos. Once set up the program practically runs itself.

Under most situations, hitting the Auto Populate Logos button will automatically assign logos to any stations it has logos for. This function has been improved over previous versions by checking for affiliate station information, allowing the program to detect the proper logos for those cryptic call-signs used by local stations. Assigning custom logos to any station is as easy as clicking the black box area and selecting an image of your choice.

This version of My Channel Logos even includes options to set the default location of channel logos in the guide via the preferences. Buttons on the right will also allow you to clear logos from any station or even remove all channel logos as before. Removing all channel logos should reset your TV guide setup back to it’s default state. There’s no need to save once a logo has been assigned as this is done automatically by the program.

Getting setup with My Channel Logos is one of the easiest and most rewarding hacks you can do to your Media Center. With added support and logos for a number of countries and fixes to the program itself this new version is even better than ever. Be sure to check out this program today and add that missing something to your Media Center TV Guide.

Get even more from your Media Center with these 5 tips to refreshing your setup for the spring!

Convert MKVs to DVR-MS for Media Center Extenders

2009-03-23T10:49:00Z

Converting MKVs to DVR-MS is the best way to guarantee full compatibility with any extender. Since DVR-MS is the default file type for all pre-Windows 7 (and TV Pack 2008) TV recordings, the file format will have no problem with playback on any Windows Media Center Extender. The DVR-MS file format will also preserve surround sound and full resolution of the MKV files being converted.

Get the Tools

To do this conversion we’ll use DVRMSToolbox which can be downloaded from Andy VT’s Blog. The latest version of DVRMSToolbox will include all the programs we need to do the conversion from MKV to DVR-MS for our Media Center Extender.

The profile for DVRMSToolbox was developed by Ben of Engadget HD with help from Warren Wiltshire of Seagull Consulting for use in this guide. Be sure to head over there and check out Engadget HD as they have lots of great home theater related articles each day.

Let’s Get Started

Once you’ve downloaded and installed DVRMSToolbox launch DVRMStoMPEGSettings from the start menu programs. We will need to tell the profile that we aren’t just working with TV series files and instruct it to not send all the files to Recorded TV.

Since we aren’t exclusively using TV series’, locate “Convert MKV to DVR-MS – mencoder” in the profile listing then press the “Edit Profile” button. Select the line that reads “Read metadata from TvDB and build Sage XML file” and click “Configure”. Check the “ContinueOnFail” checkbox and click OK.

Next locate the line reading “Move file specified in Context(‘OutputFile’) to …” and select it then hit “Configure”. Uncheck the “UseRecordedTVPath” checkbox and double-click the DestinationPath dialog box to set the output directory. This will prevent each converted file from being moved to the Recorded TV directory. Alternatively, you could also simply remove this step from the conversion profile. Once this is done, save the profile and exit DVRMSToolbox Settings.

After saving the conversion profile you should be able to convert non-TV series files to DVR-MS. Open DVRMStoMPEGGUI from the start menu programs. Once inside, double-click the Input File dialog box and select the MKV file you want to convert (you will need to change the file types dropbox to “All Files (*.*)”). Then set the output file name by double-clicking the Output File dialog box and setting the “Save as Type” dropbox to DVR-MS.

Inside the main window set the Process Priority, the higher the priority the faster the transcode should take place. Setting the priority to “Realtime” is not suggested, however, as this can cause system instability. In the Profile dropbox select the “Convert MKV to DVR-MS – mencoder” profile and make sure the “Use Selected Profile” checkbox is marked.

Press “Run” to begin the conversion. This process can take quite a bit of time to complete and doesn’t scale well with multiple core systems. The resulting DVR-MS file will most likely take up more space than the original MKV file as well. Any MKV files that have been converted can be deleted after the process is completed.

That’s all there is to converting your MKVs to DVR-MS using DVRMSToolbox. You should now be able to play the converted file on any Windows Media Center Extender.

Be sure to leave a comment on your experience and tips for using DVRMSToolbox and Media Center Extenders below or in the Google Friend Connect at the top of each page at Hack7MC.com!

Essentials for Hacking Windows 7 Media Center

2009-03-20T17:49:00Z

If you’ve been reading Hack7MC regularly you’ve probably noticed that a number of tools are used quite frequently. This quick list will get you on your way to doing some Media Center Hacking of your own in no time.

Find those Hidden Folders

By default, many of the folders Media Center uses to store data are hidden from the user. To get instant access to these folders in Windows Explorer, open Control Panel then Folder Options. On the View tab, scroll until you see the Hidden Files and Folders Section. Set this option to Show Hidden Files, Folders and Drives.

Take Control of Your Files

By default, Windows will lock the user out of access to certain system files, including many of those that affect Media Center. To get around this we can use the “Take Ownership” registry fix which allows us to right-click any file and take control. Just download the fix and double-click to apply it to your machine.

Always Make Backups!

Before getting into the programs used to hack Media Center’s system files it’s important to note you should always make backups. There is absolutely NO REASON to not take the time to place a copy of those files you’re editing in a safe folder. This can save you more time and headaches than all the others Media Center hacks combined.

A Few Good Programs

Now that we have access to all those hidden and locked files and folders let’s get a few programs to let us into the meat of those files. First we need to open a few .dll files to get to the good stuff inside.

Restorator is the perfect program for editing Media Center’s dll files. This program gives you the ability to extract the image and xml files contained inside each dll. Although there are many other choices in resource editing programs, Restorator is a perfect choice for it’s ability to work natively with PNG files used frequently in Media Center.

Once you’ve extracted those files from the dlls using Restorator, you’ll need a few good tools to edit them as well. One of the main types of files besides PNG files, which can be edited in most any image editor, are XML files. These can be edited in notepad but there’s a better way.

XML Notepad 2007 is a program from Microsoft that is free to download from the Microsoft Download Center. This program will simplify the way you work with XML files by breaking them down into an easy to navigate tree view. This setup is perfectly suited for edit Media Center’s XML files and the price tag can’t be beat.

Once you’ve got the tools you’re ready to set out on your own to try out a few Media Center modifications of your own. To find the bulk of Media Center’s files make your way to \Windows\ehome\ in Windows Explorer. The database and packages for Media Center are typically stored in \ProgramData and Users\Username\AppData folders. Just poke around, make sure you’ve got backups and have fun but remember who sent you! Let me know if you come up with a great new hack at mhealy@hack7mc.com and share it with the community.

Join Hack7MC’s readers on Google Friend Connect at the top of each page, login with any Google or OpenID account!

Remove or Rearrange Default Menu Strip Items

2009-03-19T19:12:00Z

Using some of the same techniques as in this previous article on removing entire strips from Windows 7 Media Center, we can remove individual items from any strip. This is a somewhat difficult hack to employ and is recommended only for more advanced users. System files will be changed during this hack and backups of all files should be made prior to starting.

Get the tools

We will be using the same tools as the previous hack but first make sure to create two copies of “ehres.dll” which can be found in “\Windows\ehome\”. One of these will be for editing and the other will be saved as a backup.

Once you’ve got the files, you will need a resource editor and an XML editor. The resource editor used in this guide will be Restorator. This easy to use resource editor isn’t free but does have a 30-day trial available for download. Also required is XML Notepad 2007 which is available to download free from Microsoft Download Center.

Find the strip’s XML file to edit

Next, open the “ehres.dll” file which you’ve saved for editing in Restorator. In the left pane there will be a number of folders listed, expand the “html” folder then scroll down until you locate a series of files named “SM.XXX.XML”. Locate the file which corresponds to the strip you’d like to edit, for example “SM.MOVIES.XML” contains information for the Movies strip.

Extract the SM.XML file from the ehres.dll by dragging and dropping the file onto your desktop or anywhere on your hard drive. Alternatively, right-click the file and select “Extract > Extract as..” to export the XML File. It’s a good idea to create a backup of each of these files as well before editing them. Once you’ve located and extracted the XML file for the strip you’d like to edit, open the file in XML Notepad.

Edit the XML File

With the XML file open in XML Notepad, locate and expand the “home:StartMenuCategory”, “QuickLinks”, “constraints:ConstrainedList”, and “Source” folders. Each of the folders inside the “Source” folder represents an item in the default menu strip with the exception of the first folder.

Removing an item from a menu strip is simple at this point. Expand each set of folders until you locate the one with the corresponding title to the item you want to remove. The name should be fairly easy to discern from the “App” value or “EntryPoint” value. Deleting the root folder for any item will remove it permanently from the menu strip. The root folder will be the one just listed directly inside the “source” folder as shown in the image above.

To rearrange items on any given strip, locate the “Priority” setting for each strip item. These values define the order in which each item comes in the list. An item with a “Priority” of zero will be placed before an item with the “Priority” of one. Swapping these values will allow you to alter the position of any given menu item. Be careful to not have conflicting values or it may result in undesirable effects.

Rebuild ehres.dll and copy to ehome

Once you’ve made the desired changes to the menu strip’s XML file it needs to be re-added to the ehres.dll. To do this simply drag the file back into Restorator and drop it on the same file in the left pane. Alternatively, right-click the correct file name and select “Assign > Assign To..” and select your modified XML file. Once you’ve laded each of the modified XML files into Restorator, save ehres.dll.

Once you’ve got a new ehres.dll file, open Windows Explorer to “\Windows\ehome\”. You will need to have the “Take Ownership” registry fix installed, then right-click the original ehres.dll file and select “Take Ownership”. This will allow you to rename the original “ehres.dll” to “ehres.dll.original”. Once that’s been done, copy the new ehres.dll file into the folder.

Restart Media Center to check that you’re edits have been completed successfully. If Media Center should crash at this time it is most likely due to an incorrect XML file. If this is the case you should likely revert to a backed up file and try again. As long as all goes well you should have your perfectly tailored Media Center start menu.

Want more hacks like this? Subscribe to the RSS Feed or follow on Twitter for the latest updates!

Repairing Windows and Media Center System Files

2009-03-18T21:39:00Z

One of our readers, mrmoto, has dropped us a tip on repairing your broken Media Center system files. Since we’re all about hacking Windows 7 Media Center the need to repair what has been broken is sure to come up from time to time. Not only will this little tip work on Media Center files but all Windows system files so, hopefully, this command line application should help to get you back up fast.

Click on the Start menu, choose All Programs, then Accessories, then right-click on the Command Prompt item and select Run as administrator
Click Continue to authorize opening a command prompt with administrative privileges
Run this command in the cmd prompt: sfc /scannow
The cmd prompt should list text stating "Beginning system scan. This process will take some time."
Wait for the scan to complete (this can take several minutes so be patient). This command will scan all protected system files and attempt to replace incorrect versions with correct Microsoft versions
When the scan completes, the SFC tool will indicate whether or not it found any problems and whether or not it was able to fix them
If any errors are reported that SFC was unable to fix, there are steps in this knowledge base article that explain how to locate and attempt to fix the errors
After fixing any errors that are found, try to use Windows Vista Media Center again

In place of step 7 you can also use the “Take Ownership” registry fix to take control of any files that SFC is unable to fix on a first run. Simply download the registry file and install the registry entry. Then once you’ve got the “Take Ownership” fix installed, right-click the problem file and select “Take Ownership”. Then attempt to run SFC again following the steps above.

As mentioned in mrmoto’s comments these steps originally come from Aaron Stebner on MSDN blogs.

Removing Start Menu Strips from Windows 7 Media Center

2009-03-17T19:15:00Z

So you read the guide on Adding New Start Menu Strips and now you want to remove that Movies strip and replace it with a Media Browser strip. Maybe you just aren’t that into sports and want to get rid of the Sports strip. Either way, it’s a simple hack to get rid of those unwanted start menu strips.

Get the Tools

First we need a couple of tools to get us through this hack. A resource editor is required, Restorator is my personal favorite for it’s ease of use and that’s what will be used in this guide. Unfortunately, Restorator isn’t free but does have a trial version available. It’s well worth the price if you plan on doing a lot of Media Center hacking though.

While the XML files we’ll be working with can be edited in something such as notepad Microsoft has a free program that will make this a lot easier. Download XML Notepad 2007 free from Microsoft Download. This free little program is extremely handy for editing XML documents, which are the basis of much of Media Center’s layout.

Get the Files

Now we need to get the files to work with. You will need to get a copy of “ehres.dll” from “\Windows\ehome”. Also, be sure to have the “Take Ownership” registry fix installed as it will be needed later on. Make two copies of “ehres.dll”, one should be a backup kept in a safe place the other will be for editing.

Open your “ehres.dll” for editing in Restorator. There should be a number of folders listed on the left hand pane. Expand the html folder and scroll down until you find “startmenu.xml”. Click the file and drag it to your desktop or anywhere on your hard disk for editing. Now that you have a copy of “startmenu.xml” open Notepad 2007 and load the file.

Edit Startmenu.XML

Once you have “Startmenu.xml” opened in Notepad 2007 you will see a couple of folders ad some xmlns declarations in the left hand pane. It will most likely be quite intimidating to anyone not familiar with XML but we can ignore these for now and just expand “home:StartMenuData”. Then expand the next three folders inside, “Categories”, “constraints:ConstrainedList” and “Source”. Now you should see a large list of folders.

We aren’t concerned with the first twenty of these folders as they are placeholders for the extra programs strip. After these first placeholder folders you will notice a couple of folders marked “constraints:ConstrainedItem”. These are the first few start menu strips, pictures and folders. Expand these folders as well as the “Value” and “home:StartMenuCategory” folders and you will see an entry marked “StartMenuCategory”. On the right hand you will see “global://Pictures:PicturesSMC”, this tells us that this is the entry for the Pictures strip.

Expanding each of these folders you will see entries for each of the available start menu strips, including Now Playing, Movies, Music, etc. To remove any of these strips simply select the main “home:ConstrainedCategory” folder for the strip and delete it. Then save the “Startmenu.xml” file.

Update ehres.dll

Now that you’ve edited “Startmenu.xml” and saved it the time has come to reapply it to the “ehres.dll” file. Make sure you’ve got Restorator open and your “ehres.dll” file for editing is loading. Either drag the edited “startmenu.xml” onto the “startmenu.xml” listing in Restorator or right-click the file in Restorator and select “Assign > Assign to..” and choose your edited xml file from the dialog. Once the new xml file has been added to the “ehres.dll” file save the .dll with Restorator.

This should create two files with the default settings, a backup and a new “ehres.dll”. Copy the new “ehres.dll” into the “\Windows\ehome\” directory. To successfully copy the file you will need to have the “Take Ownership” registry fix installed. With the fix installed, right-click the original “ehres.dll” in the “ehome” directory and select “Take Ownership”. You should now be able to copy over the original file. Be sure you’ve got a backup before proceeding though!

Check it out in Media Center

Once you’ve got your “ehres.dll” replaced, relaunch Media Center to check that the start strip you wanted to remove is gone. That should be all there is to it. If Media Center crashes upon starting or you’ve removed the wrong start menu strip by mistake replace your “ehres.dll” with the backup you created. Then you’ll have a fresh start to try again. A crash is most likely caused by an incorrect XML edit.

Media Center Status Application for Social Networks

2009-03-16T19:30:00Z

Are you the type of person who likes to keep everyone you know in the loop about exactly what you’re watching or listening to at any given point? Then this little plug-in may just be for you! With support for Facebook, and now Twitter, this little app will alert the masses to your viewing habits. The newest version also allows you to receive the latest Tweets from your Twitter friends.

Getting setup with Media Center Status Application isn’t too difficult, though it certainly could be easier. The program’s installation and configuration tools come in separate packages which can confuse many from the beginning. You will also need to approve the application through Facebook before it will be able to access the service.

Detailed instructions on setting Facebook to allow status updates from Media Center Status Application are available on this page where you will also find the files for download. Once installation is finished, run the configuration tool which must be downloaded in a separate zip file on the same page. The number of options available is actually quite impressive for such a simple application.

Among the options available are the ability to enable or disable certain services and even set separate hours that you’d like status updates to be made. You’ll also notice the ability to setup an rss feed, however at this point it’s saved locally instead of using a service such as Feedburner. The configuration program even includes the ability to exclude types of content and exclude files by name.

Once setup, return to Media Center and you will be prompted to enter your login information for each service. Be certain that you’ve followed directions to enable status updates for Facebook or an error will occur. Twitter is a fair bit less fickle in it’s use.

That’s all there is to it, your friends will never again wonder what it is you’re watching at this very moment. Installing Media Center Status Application cannot, however, make them want to know what you’re watching. I can also easily imagine receiving Twitter updates during your favorite movie can becoming quite tiresome very quickly.

This program might have one of the ugliest logos I have ever seen but I’m sure there are those who wouldn’t have it any other way. Also, configuration tool or at the very least should have been included in a settings section within Media Center in my opinion. For those who need a program like this though Media Center Status Application is a good tool which serves it’s purpose well.

If you’re reading this chances are you should be staying on top of Media Center Hacks by Following on Twitter!