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 order for Media Center guide download to succeed.

To attempt to synchronize your system clock, you can use the following steps:

1. Click on the Start menu, choose Run and type timedate.cpl
2. Click on the Internet Time tab
3. Check the box labeled Automatically synchronize with an Internet time server
4. Select the time server of your choice and click Update Now

If you are having trouble synchronizing your system clock, you can use the following steps to repair the Win32 time service and hopefully this will help resolve the issue:

1. Click on the Start menu, choose Run and type cmd
2. Type net stop w32time and wait for the service to stop
3. Type w32tm.exe /unregister
4. Type w32tm.exe /register
5. Type net start w32time and wait for the service to start
6. Try again to synchronize your system clock

There are also a couple of useful links with additional instructions and troubleshooting steps for system clock synchronization issues if the above steps do not help:

• How to configure an authoritative time server in Windows XP
• Windows Time Service Tools and Settings

For other suggestions regarding Media Center guide download errors, please refer to the links in the Guide download errors section of the Media Center Update Rollup 2 troubleshooting guide.

<update date="4/11/2006"> Added links to additional resources for system clock synchronization issues </update>