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

Discussion in 'Windows 10' started by ricktendo64, May 8, 2015.

  1. Aly

    Aly MDL Member

    Feb 27, 2008
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    Definitely affected me. Kept noticing graphic glitches. And occasional lag spikes. Just while on desktop idling.
    I won't boot to 1903 partition until MS fixes it sometime in August.
     
  2. j.c.f.

    j.c.f. MDL Member

    Mar 1, 2016
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    #9482 j.c.f., Jul 20, 2019
    Last edited: Jul 21, 2019
    I'd be checking your video drivers. I updated the sacrificial laptop to 1903 shortly after it was released and while I haven't set up WMC on it I did notice that RDP to the machine presents a nice solid black screen instead of anything useful. Digging into it MS recommend display driver update as the solution, barring that setting the display driver to plain generic VESA level of functionality (of course that thing was made in Vista's day so no new display drivers for it, no way MS can fall back to legacy behavior, pathetic) so they clearly changed something deep in the kernel so if you've got a recent display device I'd be pulling down some experimental drivers. Or sticking with 1809 of course... I'll set up WMC on my 1903 box see if I see your lag issues.

    UPDATE: Yeah, my 1903 box runs WMC without laginess so it's idiosyncratic, still bet video drivers are going to be the root of the issue though. And sometimes Windows Update has the right driver, I updated another of my boxes to 1803 months ago and it's network card lost it's ability to wake on LAN, going into the device manager and selecting update driver fixed the issue much to my surprise. Of course RDP to my 1903 box is still borked so the July patches didn't rectify that.
     
  3. Dartman

    Dartman MDL Novice

    Jan 23, 2016
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    I finally gave up and updated 1511 I hard locked to 1903. I can't get it to see my HDHomeRun Prime so I'll use Plex or the Silicon Dust record ap. I have a tower that has 7 ultimate 64 and a I7 980 that I can run WMC on if I can get it to wake up from sleep reliably and use my newer 4960x tower to recode the captures if I want to keep using WMC. Sucks that they decided to kill WMC seeing how it's still the only option that supports the movie channels DRM. Luckily I only have one movie channel that I hardly watch but it's the principle of it as much as anything. I've been through all of the work arounds and it's getting to be not worth all the aggravation every time no tuner was available etc to try and fix it yet again. My box has been locked to 1511 since it came out but other things were having issues.
     
  4. Kévin Chalet

    Kévin Chalet MDL Member

    Apr 11, 2019
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    #9484 Kévin Chalet, Jul 24, 2019
    Last edited: Jul 25, 2019
    I finally spent some time investigating this issue and found what was causing it (some missing COM registrations in the MSVidCtl manifest that were not properly generated by the mt.exe tool).

    That said, I read that a few folks here had to replace CPFilters.dll in System32 and it's not clear to me why as it works fine on my 1903 18362 VM without that. But maybe it was caused by the fact WMC still used the global MSVidCtl.dll for some operations? It's also possible it was just a regression in CPFilters.dll that was later fixed (since this file was updated by MSFT mid-June).

    I haven't migrated any prod' machine to 1903 yet, so that would be great if someone was willing to give my 8.8.4 package a try: if you're interested, please tag me and I'll PM you the Mega link.

    I finally managed to reproduce that on a test machine and updated the 8.8.4 package to include a local copy of CPFilters.dll and an assembly manifest, which should solve the issues caused by the breaking changes in 1903.

    Thanks.
     
  5. technodevotee

    technodevotee MDL Senior Member

    Sep 18, 2015
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    That's great news. I've sent you a PM/Conversation, whatever.
     
  6. Kévin Chalet

    Kévin Chalet MDL Member

    Apr 11, 2019
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    @rhahgleuhargh nice catch! I'll make sure I fix it in the next version :)
     
  7. jspenc3

    jspenc3 MDL Novice

    Dec 12, 2015
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    Should we remove the v13 version from technodevotee and install the new 8.8.5 when it comes out? In particular does 8.8.4+ include all of the other dll patches and such that were in v13 (other than CPFilters)?
     
  8. technodevotee

    technodevotee MDL Senior Member

    Sep 18, 2015
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    Kevin's 8.8.4 includes fixes for all the problems caused by the modified DLLs including cpfilters without needing to do anything extra. Hopefully, it is also futureproof, whereas V13 was my attempt at an interim solution.

    But as long as it is working, there's no reason to remove V13 and install 8.8.X although it might be worth doing so next time MS break WMC.
     
  9. Bigal

    Bigal MDL Member

    Mar 4, 2011
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    I just wanted to say thank you to you guys for what you are doing.
    I finally got offered the 1903 update last week and updated and manually updated WMC and all was good, except the music library problem i mentioned before but dont want to turn off automatic download options off, will 8.8.4 resolve this issue?
     
  10. kidlazer

    kidlazer MDL Novice

    Mar 8, 2015
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    #9493 kidlazer, Jul 29, 2019
    Last edited: Jul 29, 2019
    First of all, thanks to all of you who continue to keep WMC alive. I've trolled this thread for years keeping my TV working and it's greatly appreciated.

    Onto business: I'm about to update my currently running system from 1803 to 1903. WMC was installed using the 8.8.1 installer and manually fixing the various dlls. What is the best way to backup all my settings and recorder schedules so that everything works correctly? I've tried using various backup methods in the past, including the BackupRestoreSettings.cmd, and it never works for me. It usually results in WMC not functioning properly or crashing so I just do fresh installs of WMC and setup everything from scratch. It's not the end of the world to do, but it is certainly becoming tiresome with Microsoft's update cadence.

    Also, I think I know the answer based on what I've read recently, but which is the best version to use to date? It appears Kevin's 8.8.4 now supersedes v13, correct?

    Thanks everyone.
     
  11. bootloop

    bootloop MDL Novice

    Jul 3, 2016
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    #9495 bootloop, Jul 30, 2019
    Last edited: Jul 30, 2019
    @kidlazer
    After trying all methods I've had the most consistently good results using Sean's WMC Backup as recommended above by Bigal.
     
  12. technodevotee

    technodevotee MDL Senior Member

    Sep 18, 2015
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    #9496 technodevotee, Jul 30, 2019
    Last edited: Jul 30, 2019
    I don't understand why backuprestoresettings.cmd doesn't work for you. I've used it from day one and it works perfectly every time for me.

    OTOH, when I've used Sean's backup I only get certain bits of my schedule and the rest is missing.

    V13 was never intended to be the latest or greatest - it is an alternative to the V8 branch.

    I created it because I wanted to continue using WMC full screen in a Remote Desktop session (I don't care about playing video remotely or extenders) like I could in V12.

    I created the add-on fixes for all the problems we were having for my own use and added them to my installer.

    When I saw all the people struggling to keep WMC going, I made them available on line for use with other versions.

    I had never intended releasing V13 but I saw that people were asking for WMC that would run on later versions of 32bit Windows 10 and decided to do the same for the 32bit version as I had done for the 64bit one.

    When I made the 32bit version available, it seemed logical to make the 64bit version available at the same time.

    In summary
    V8.8.4 is the most recent version and It is being actively developed. It is easy to install and just works.
    V13 is based on old V12 files with a modified V8 installer. It requires extra steps to get it to work.
     
  13. randog311

    randog311 MDL Novice

    Jul 28, 2019
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    I recently had Win 10 installed Version 1809 Pro & WMC-V8.8.4
    I am having issues getting the Guide to Load. I am making no sense of "Simple guide setup for Live TV by Gunnerhook" as to cmd line spacing etc. I just downloaded this SeanMauch and unzipped files however I don't know what to expect?
    I am using a Hauppauge Quad tuner card and WMC is steaming OTA live flawlessly as well as able to record live TV without a schedule.
    Any help in this matter is greatly appreciated.
    I'm a Retired Pro Wrench, very Mechanically inclined however not much of a Computer Geek.
    Thanks, randog311
     
  14. kidlazer

    kidlazer MDL Novice

    Mar 8, 2015
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    #9499 kidlazer, Jul 30, 2019
    Last edited: Jul 30, 2019
    Perhaps I'm not doing the steps in the correct order? Here's my usual order of events when I attempt to do this:
    -Run backuprestoresettings.cmd as admin to create backup
    -Perform OS upgrade (in this case, 1803 to 1903)
    -Run uninstaller.cmd as admin to remove the broken remnants of WMC
    -Reboot
    -Run installer*.cmd as admin
    -Reboot
    -Run backuprestoresettings.cmd as admin to restore settings
    -Launch WMC

    When I do this however, the tuner never works right. If i go through the TV setup process again to fix that, I'll end up with duplicate channel entries and other oddities. This is usually the point I get frustrated and just start completely over, setting up all my stuff from scratch. I always just assumed it's how Windows handles the hardware migration during the upgrade process, borking whatever settings get copied over from the backup. Am I doing something in the wrong order, or am I just extremely unlucky?

    Oddly, I've never had any issues with my guide data downloading, which appears to make me very lucky compared to most of us.
     
  15. randog311

    randog311 MDL Novice

    Jul 28, 2019
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    I looked in the Event Viewer, Nothing flagged WMC, earlier today I performed a Win 10 Reset while retaining Files.
    I waited to connect the Internet until it was required to enter the Zip Code.
    Same results as before.
    Should I try a Full Win 10 Reset?
    I noticed some remnants such as WMC icon (Empty Shortcut) on the Desktop while retaining Files reset.