[DISCUSSION] Patch WMC to run on Windows 10 final & possible alternatives

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Got around to updating to 1709, Recordings and Playback seem to be working just fine. Only missing the tray icons for guide updates and the red recording icon. Not a big deal, but if anyone has managed to get these working, I'd appreciate it being shared.

 

The problem seems to be with ehtray.exe, which does run momentarily when you start Media Center, or when recording is taking place, but then closes almost immdiately. Attempting to run ehtray.exe without Media Center running results in it running for about 10 seconds then shutting down (this is the same behaviour if you are running 1703). As other people have pointed out, if you manually start ehtray.exe once Media Center is running (or recording) it will stay up until Media Center is closed.

What I have done as a work around for now, is to create a small VBS script that wakes up every 60 seconds and sees whether Media Center (ehshell.exe), the recorder (ehrec.exe) and the tray icon (ehtray.exe) are running. If the tray icon is running then all is good. If it is not running, but Media Center / Recorder are running, then the tray icon is manually launched.

I'm still testing it out, but it seems to run OK - within a minute of starting Media Center or a recording, the icon now appears.

 

I have the same problem, let us know the script if it is working.

 

You do know that MCE uses MS own MPEG filters, right? In order to make it use LAV you should use a little tool like MCDU. I use it to change MCE from using MS own codecs to LAV. Right now it seems to be impossibile to find (it's very old), but if u find a tools that does the same thing, I'd give it a try. It seems to me you are using MS codecs (I had the same problem).

 

Here is the app.
But be careful whit it because you can damage the windows codecs (!)
I do not know where you want to use this for, normally you do not need this to change the codecs.
In more than 10 yeas of using MCE I never had to change codec settings within MCE.
If u just install the KLite Mega Codeckpack in the wright way everything must be working just fine, and believe me, this works allot beter then other codecs like Shark or so...........

@QwErtZ23455:
Are the arctifact seen while playing movie, TV or both?

 

This is the script - cut and paste it into a .vbs file and then just run it. It runs in the background, so you will have to kill it via task manager if you want to stop it (or you can run it via the command line using cscript.exe)

Code:

dim service, trayrunning, trayrequired, i, objProcess, objShell
set service = GetObject ("winmgmts:")

Do While i = 0
    trayrunning = "No"
    trayrequired = "No"

    Set colProcess = service.ExecQuery ("Select * from Win32_Process where NAME like 'eh%' ")

    For Each objProcess in colProcess
        if objProcess.Name = "ehtray.exe" then
            trayrunning = "Yes"
        end if
       
        if (objProcess.Name = "ehrec.exe") or (objProcess.Name = "ehshell.exe") then
                trayrequired = "Yes"
        end if
    Next

   
    if (trayrunning = "No") and (trayrequired = "Yes") then
        Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
        objShell.Run "C:\Windows\ehome\ehtray.exe"
        Set objShell = Nothing
    end if
   
wscript.sleep(60000)
Loop

Feel free to improve the code if you spot any errors....

 

Thanks a bunch, working like a charm so far.

 

Thanks dbDesign but I didn't neet MCDU, QwErtZ23455 did
Anyway, I use just LAV filters and standard Windows Codec, but even if I installed LAV I had to manually change codecs via MCDU in order for MCE to use them and not MS's ones. MCE doesn't care of codecs pack etc, it still uses its own MS codecs (I use MCE since Windows XP Media Center...). Anyway, that's my experience, that's way I sudgested MCDU.

 

I'll try when I'm back home!

So you suggest to properly install LAVFilters using MCDU? And if this doesn't work I could try KLite Codepack?


Thanks a lot!
Best regards

 

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NEVER use that dirty hack called MCDU

Change the codec properly, for WMC only, if you need to


Use this if you want the MS premium codecs

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00


[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Decoder]
"PreferredMPEG2AudioDecoderCLSID"="{E1F1A0B8-BEEE-490D-BA7C-066C40B5E2B9}"
"PreferredMPEG2VideoDecoderCLSID"="{212690FB-83E5-4526-8FD7-74478B7939CD}"


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Or use the following if you want to use the LAV codecs


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Decoder]
"PreferredMPEG2AudioDecoderCLSID"="{E8E73B6B-4CB3-44A4-BE99-4F7BCB96E491}"
"PreferredMPEG2VideoDecoderCLSID"="{EE30215D-164F-4A92-A4EB-9D4C13390F9F}"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Pretty simple, clean and reversible with a single mouse click.

 

THANK YOU! It worked perfectly with the LAV Codecs!

I actually found this registry entry by myself, but I didn't knew what's the proper value to get LAVFilters running ... ^^ How did you find out the right CLSID of LAVFilters? I couldn't find any information about this by myself.

Best Regards!

 

I think I am having the same problem with another of my PCs that is running WMC, but if I right click on either the Windows Media Center shortcut or on eshell.exe the properties dialog doesn't have a compatibility tab - how did you manage to display it?

 

Disabling full-screen optimization fixed the issue completely, even with free-sync enabled.

 

I updated a different machine yesterday (to the one I have had problems with) and it worked fine. So I installed MCE to a third machine and it froze, but disabling full-screen optimization fixed it. So in a little while I'll do a clean install of Windows and try it on my "main" media PC. Hopefully that will work. I'm pleased to see it's not been completely broken. Must be something specific to that PC.

 

Apologies for my ignorance, but how did you manage to disable full screen optimization? I cannot see a compatibility tab if I look at file properties so I have no way of disabling it either on the shortcut or on ehshell.exe - I can see a compatibility tab for any application files or shortcuts that are NOT within the c:\windows folder, but any files with this folder (including ehome) do not have the compatibility tab.

I did try switching it off under settings -> gaming -> game bar -> show game bar when I play full screen games that microsoft has verified (uncheck the box) but this didn't work for me.

 

StefanR
Thanks for the script. Works good for me. It is a great work-around

 

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I run a 75Hz ultrawide (2560x1080) freesynsc (enabled) screen on displayport, I also forced 0-255 output via regedit (since AMD no longer offers such option in the gpu control panel). Different screen-gpu setups may be work without any tweaks.