The Windows Home Server Team is pleased to announce that Power Pack 3 will be available in all shipping languages (Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish) on November 24th, 2009. Power Pack 3 will be made available to existing users via Windows Update. Users need to have Windows Home Server with Power Pack 2 already installed on their home server. Power Pack 3 will automatically install as part of Windows Update if Automatic Updates is enabled on the home server.

http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windowshomeserver/archive/2009/11/19/windows-home-server-power-pack-3-available-november-24th-includes-enhancements-for-windows-7-based-computers.aspx

This free ebook  is written by RSVR85 is a tech enthusiast with a passion for tweaking and improving PCs and Rich Robinson,a Microsoft MVP in
the Desktop Experience category.

Check it here:-

http://mintywhite.com/images/ebook/W7MC-Handbook.pdf

This project was inspired by a comment made by Ben Drawbaugh over at The Green Button (http://thegreenbutton.com). Paraphrasing a bit, the idea is to use the free program guide provided by TitanTV to remotely schedule recordings on a Vista or Windows 7 Media Center. Unfortunately, TitanTV doesn’t seem to have a direct way to push their TVPI information directly to a remote Media Center, so I developed this (somewhat sleazy) workaround.

Simply stated, the Wizard periodically checks a designated gMail account for messages with a TVPI attachment. For security purposes, it ignores messages that don’t meet the following requirements:

• the ‘from’ field of the message must contain a known word or phrase; and
• the ’subject’ must include a secret word that you choose at setup.

Next, the attachment is downloaded, parsed, and a Click-to-Record XML file is created. The program is scheduled using the CreateScheduleRequest method of the EventSchedule class in the Microsoft.MediaCenter.TV.Scheduling namespace.

If that didn’t make sense (and it certainly didn’t to me), a walk through the source code should help clear things up.

The program is written in vb.net instead of c#, because:

• there’s a dearth of vb examples of Click-to-Record on the web
• I’m a pretty shoddy programmer

This is obviously a very early release, with minimal error checking. So be sure to review the attached souce code carefully and USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Comments, suggestions and improvements are all welcomed!

Finally, please note that the POP3 gMail client uses the nifty C# Mail library (a.k.a. Higuchi.Net.Mail) from here on Codeplex. You can find the original at http://csharpmail.codeplex.com/.

Thanks for looking, and have fun!

Check it here:-

http://remotewizard.codeplex.com/

The Problem:-

Consider the following scenario:-

1] Start Vista  Windows Media Center.

2] Click Music, click the right arrow on the right of the screen, and then click play all to play the music.

3] Click the Skip button present in Media Center Remote Control several times very quickly.

You will receive the following error:-

Audio Error
An unknown audio error has occurred.
(80010001)

Resolution:-

A] Get the latest Service Pack to fix the issue:-

Click Start , click All Programs, and then click Windows Update.

B] A supported hotfix is available from Microsoft:-

http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=941234&kbln=en-us

If the  Media Center data store gets corrupted Windows Media Center will crash.So if there is a corrupted  Media Center data store then here is a fix:-

1.Make sure ‘Show hidden files,folders and drives option is enabled.

2.This will allow to show the hidden ProgramData under %SYSTEMDRIVE%\ProgramData\Microsoft\eHome.Double click on it to open.

Alternatively in Start Search box type in:-

%SYSTEMDRIVE%\ProgramData\Microsoft\eHome and hit the Enter Key.

3.Double click on Microsoft folder and locate eHome.

4.Double click on eHome and locate mcepg data base (.db) file (eg.mcpeg2-0/mcepg1-5-0 etc).

5.Right click on mcpeg.db file and Delete it.

6.Restart the System and restart the Media Center as well.

We launched our public alpha for Mac/Linux in January at CES. During the show we met with several device manufactures interested in embedding Boxee into their existing devices or building a dedicated Boxee device.

I am very happy to announce we have signed our first partnership with a CE company. At this point we can not say more about the partner or the specs of the device, but we can tell you we are working closely with them to make sure we deliver a great Boxee experience on it.

We will show mockups of the box and share more details at our upcoming Boxee Beta Unveiling event in Brooklyn, NY on Dec 7th. RSVP here.

Over the next few years there will be a great change in the way we consume entertainment on our TV. The Internet is (finally) coming to the TV and with it will come a whole new world of content, applications and innovations.

We are building Boxee as a platform that would:

• make it easy for users to consume and find content – no matter what the source
• give content owners, aggregators, and developers the tools to create unique experiences with a variety of business models
• enable CE companies to enhance their Connected devices

This will be the first connected device running Boxee, but the idea is to provide consumers with a way to get Boxee in their living rooms, no matter whether it’s on a Connected TV, game console, set-top box, BluRay player, computer, etc.

Our goal is to be on every Connected device in the living room.

We are very excited about the partnership and looking forward to sharing more at the event.

http://blog.boxee.tv/2009/11/12/a-boxee-box-is-coming/

If you have a Windows Vista Media Center WITHOUT the TV Pack 2008 (Fiji) installed, and you want to do a clean install of Windows 7 instead of an upgrade, there is a fairly simple way to port the existing recording scheduled entries to the new installation.

Here is more on Danny Ton’s article :-

http://wmcteamblog.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!CE88563FC625DE9A!388.entry

The Problem:-

You are getting a stretched picture or,  unecessary  margins around the image  while watching  tv on your Media Center PC.

Why it’s happening?

It happens if the aspect ratio is not correct.

How to resolve the problem:-

1]Right click on mouse while watching TV or Video.

2]Move to Zoom option.

3]Click Zoom 1, Zoom 2, Zoom 3, and Zoom 4 to try the different zoom modes and see which one eliminates the margins and corrects image appropriately.

Alternatively you can use MORE button of your Remote Control.

EyeTV DTT Deluxe was heralded as the world’s smallest USB TV tuner in september,2008. And this year company has launched  one that’s about half the size of its predecessor.EyeTV DTT Deluxe is almost impossibly tiny.

More here:-

http://www.elgato.com/elgato/int/mainmenu/home.en.html

You can use GPEDIT.MSC command to enable or disable Windows Media Center.

Here is how to:-

1] Click Start,in the Start Search box type in:GPEDIT.MSC and press the Enter Key to launch Local Policy Editor.

2]Highlight Administrative Templates present on the left pane under the User Configuration.

3]Double click on Windows Components.

4]Scroll down to Windows Media Center.Double Click on it.

5]You will get Do not allow Windows Media Center to run message.Double click on it.

6]You will notice three options:-

a]Not Configured

b]Enabled

c]Disabled

Policy Settings:-

If you enable this setting, Windows Media Center will not run.If you disable or do not configure this setting, Windows Media Center can be run.