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April 2006 - Posts

Sunday, April 30, 2006 10:23 PM

How to detect old beta versions when deploying the .NET Framework 2.0

I was talking to a couple of Microsoft product teams a couple of weeks ago. They are trying to figure out the best way to integrate the .NET Framework 2.0 setup package into their own setup since their products require the .NET Framework 2.0 on the system
Posted by astebner | 7 Comments
Sunday, April 30, 2006 5:46 PM

Mailbag: How can I tell if I have Update Rollup 2 installed on my Media Center PC?

Question: I bought a computer from a system builder, and they told me that Update Rollup 2 for Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 is pre-installed on the computer. How can I tell for sure whether or not Update Rollup 2 really is installed on my computer?
Posted by astebner | 3 Comments
Saturday, April 29, 2006 7:48 PM

Registry settings that can be used to configure advanced Media Center options

There have been a couple of posts by myself and Matt Goyer listing some of the registry keys and values that TweakMce changes behind the scenes to configure advanced options within Windows Media Center. I decided that it would be worthwhile to post all
Posted by astebner | 32 Comments
Thursday, April 27, 2006 9:32 PM

Mailbag: How can I stop Media Center from losing FM radio presets when rebooting the PC?

Question: I have a computer that has Update Rollup 2 for Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 installed. Every time I launch the Radio experience and configure FM stations in the 10 preset values, they work fine until I close and re-open Media Center
Posted by astebner | 0 Comments
Tuesday, April 25, 2006 7:58 PM

Windows Media Center SDK build 5365.8 now available

There is a new build of the Windows Media Center SDK available on the Microsoft Connect site this evening for folks in the Windows Vista beta program. This build is compatible with Windows Vista 5365.8 build, which was released at the end of last week.
Posted by astebner | 7 Comments
Tuesday, April 25, 2006 1:11 PM

New hotfixes available for Update Rollup 2 for Media Center 2005 - April 2006 rollup and DRM hotfix

Today is the monthly release of new hotfix packages and updates to Windows Update, and there are a couple of Media Center hotfixes that have been released today that I want to draw your attention to: 1. Windows Media Digital Rights Management hotfix (KB913800)
Posted by astebner | 18 Comments
Monday, April 24, 2006 7:06 PM

Article about Visual Studio 2005 IDE extensibility

I ran across an interesting article today that describes the available extensibility options for the Visual Studio 2005 IDE : Macros Add-ins Packages The article also provides descriptions and downloadable sample code that shows how to implement a Managed
Posted by astebner | 0 Comments
Monday, April 24, 2006 9:19 AM

Updated AVerMedia TV tuner driver now available to fix Digital Audio Service errors

A couple of months ago, I posted an item about Digital Audio Service errors that can be caused with Update Rollup 2 for Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 systems that have AVerMedia TV tuners. Last week, a representative from AVerMedia posted a comment
Posted by astebner | 6 Comments
Thursday, April 20, 2006 7:25 PM

Mailbag: How can I make the WEP password text visible in the Media Center wireless network connection page

We got this question from a Windows Vista beta customer, and I wanted to pass this information on because it also applies to Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 and Update Rollup 2. Question: When I attempt to configure a wireless network within the
Posted by astebner | 3 Comments
Wednesday, April 19, 2006 6:49 PM

Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions are now free forever

I came across a press announcement and some additional blog information regarding the availability of Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions that I think is really exciting and I wanted to pass it on. When Visual Studio 2005 originally shipped in November
Posted by astebner | 1 Comments
Tuesday, April 18, 2006 9:04 PM

Update Rollup 2 setup failure when installing KB899337

I heard from a couple of customers today who ran into a new (to me) setup problem while installing Update Rollup 2 for Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 , and I decided to post it here as well in case anyone else sees it. The customers who saw this
Posted by astebner | 25 Comments
Monday, April 17, 2006 11:11 PM

Windows Media Center design and architecture - part 2

Francis Hogle has posted part 2 in his series about the behind-the-scenes design and architecture of Windows Media Center on the Media Center Sandbox site . In this post, he describes the components of the Media Center rendering engine, specifically the
Posted by astebner | 0 Comments
Friday, April 14, 2006 5:58 PM

New hotfix available to fix protected content playback errors in Update Rollup 2 for Media Center 2005

As many of you have noticed and posted on my blog in the past ( here , here , here and here ), there are some problems in some cases related to playing back protected content after installing Update Rollup 2 for Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 .
Posted by astebner | 10 Comments
Thursday, April 13, 2006 9:34 PM

New build of the Media Center SDK for Windows Vista February CTP refresh

I am really excited to announce that there is a new build of the Windows Media Center SDK available for download on the Windows Vista beta site . This new build of the SDK is designed to support the Windows Vista February CTP refresh build 5342. You can
Posted by astebner | 0 Comments
Tuesday, April 11, 2006 8:15 PM

New article posted - Visual Studio 2005 and .NET Framework 2.0 deployment guide

Over the past few months, I have written several blog posts describing how to perform various deployment and silent installation-related tasks for the Visual Studio 2005 and .NET Framework 2.0 family of products. I realized today that I had lost track
Posted by astebner | 0 Comments
Monday, April 10, 2006 9:25 PM

How to perform a silent install of Visual Studio 2005 Team Explorer

I have previously posted instructions for performing a silent installation for Visual Studio 2005 and the Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions . A customer read those previous blog posts and asked a follow-up question about how to perform a silent installation
Posted by astebner | 9 Comments
Sunday, April 09, 2006 12:50 PM

Channel 9 video about Windows Media Center development on Windows Vista

Robert Scoble stopped by a few weeks ago and filmed a video with Charlie Owen and Mark Finocchio, and the video was posted to the Channel 9 site this past Friday night. This video covers some interesting aspects of Windows Media Center in Windows Vista,
Posted by astebner | 0 Comments
Saturday, April 08, 2006 1:50 PM

White paper now available for installing and configuring Away Mode

Update Rollup 2 for Windows XP Media Center 2005 introduced a new feature called Away Mode. This feature allows a computer to appear off to users, but still be able to perform tasks that do not require any user input (such as recording scheduled TV shows
Posted by astebner | 13 Comments
Friday, April 07, 2006 6:20 PM

How to synchronize your system clock to attempt to resolve Media Center guide download errors

Many folks who have run into trouble downloading guide data within Media Center have tracked the issue down to a problem with the system clock getting out of sync with the official internet time. You must have a correctly synchronized system clock in
Posted by astebner | 7 Comments
Thursday, April 06, 2006 6:57 PM

Updated version of DUAScriptGen (v1.1.0004) is now available

A customer posted a bug report on my blog indicating that DUAScriptGen was incorrectly marking registry values that should be under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT as HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. After investigating this scenario, I found that recent Windows XP Embedded hotfix
Posted by astebner | 1 Comments
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Thursday, April 06, 2006 6:33 PM

Introducing Heat - a new WiX tool for automating creation of setup authoring files

Derek Cicerone (one of the volunteer WiX developers) posted a blog entry this week introducing a new WiX tool that is now available, and I wanted to post a link to it here so more folks will hopefully see it and check it out. The tool is named Heat, and
Posted by astebner | 0 Comments
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Wednesday, April 05, 2006 6:41 PM

Updated version of DUAScriptGen (v1.1.0003) is now available

I have posted an update to the DUAScriptGen power toy for Windows XP Embedded on my tool download site at this location . This version contains a bug fix for a parsing error brought to my attention by Lynda Allen last week. Apparently, the format of the
Posted by astebner | 5 Comments
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Saturday, April 01, 2006 1:41 PM

Useful FAQ for configuring an Xbox 360 as a Media Center Extender

I have been asked several questions recently related to setting up an Xbox 360 with a Windows XP Media Center 2005 system for use as a Media Center Extender. I recently found a pretty good FAQ page that is posted on the Media Center site that I wanted
Posted by astebner | 15 Comments
 
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