Use a Zune Remote Control with Windows Media Center

One thing I do like about the Apple TV is the tiny little remote control, what it lacks in buttons it makes up for in elegance. The remote that comes with the Zune AV Dock is equally as elegant and could make a simple alternative to the clunky Media Center remotes 

Lifehacker have a great tip for using a Zune Remote Control with Windows Media center. It turns out that all that is needed to get to work is a registry change

By default Windows is listening on channel 1; the Zune remote is channel 8. This is also the same channel for the Xbox 360 multimedia remote. You can set the value to 8 but this mean that the regular MCE remote would not work. So what you want to do is set the ID to 0, this would make Windows listen to all the IR ID’s.

Open the registry. Scroll down toComputer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\HidIr\Remotes\745a17a0-74d3-11d0-b6fe-00a0c90f57da

Find the REG_DWORD named CodeSetNum0 and change the value to Zero. Reboot the PC and enjoy.

I have just tested this and it works. You don’t get the dedicated shortcut buttons but its a neat alternate.

via Lifehacker