It has been a while since we talk about Windows Media Center addins so it’s nice to be able to write about an updated addin. MCE Controller is by no other than Charlie Kindel former Windows Home Server and Windows Media Center chief at Microsoft and it lets you control your home theatre PC over the network. You can use TCP/IP or serial port to send text strings to the PC which can then run the commands, for example “mcestart” will start Windows Media Center or “VK_MEDIA_NEXT_TRACK” will play the next track, you could even use it to manage remote PCs. It doesn’t just work with Windows Media Center, it will also work with XBMC and other Windows programs. The latest update improves the reliability of the addin and has extra command options.

MCE Controller is an open source project that you can download for free from codeplex.com.

Build Version: 1.8.6.27986

Made disconnect code more robust. In particular, fixed a crashing bug when clients ‘forcibly disconnect’.

Added file logging %LocalAppData%\Kindel Systems\MCE Controller\MCEControl.log

Adds option to disable all internal commands. If the “DisableInternalCommands” value of HKEYLOCALMACHINE\SOFTWARE\Kindel Systems\MCE Controller is anything but 0, MCE Controller will disable all internally defined commands (e.g. VK key codes, single characters, mouse commands, etc…) and only respond to commands defined in the MCEControl.commmands file.

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