Firewalls, firewalls, how I love thee!

denmor — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 20:50:00 GMT

As I’m sure most of you know initial setup/connectivity is the biggest issues with MCX. One of the primary reasons setup fails is because of 3^rd party firewalls installed on the Media Center PC blocking the ports we need. MCX setup will configure Windows Firewall in MCE2005 and Windows Vista to automatically allow MCX to work. We also have worked with both McAfee and Symantec to ensure their products will auto-configure to allow MCX (and the rest of MCE) to work. If you’re having problems with either McAfee or Symantec firewalls not auto-configuring themselves please let me a comment with the version of the product.

But there are many other firewalls out there that do not auto-configure themselves. This means you will have to manually configure the firewall to allow the ports/binaries we use. Here is the list (they are different between MCE2005 and Vista):

MCE2005: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter/extender/setup/firewall/config.mspx

Windows Vista: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/mediacenter/firewall.mspx

I also want to clear up some misconceptions I see on the xbox forums: the firewall on your router/internet gateway device is not filtering traffic on your home network; it is filtering traffic from the Internet to your home network. As such it’s not affecting your ability to get your MCX connected to your MCE. You should not fiddle with the firewall settings on this device when having connectivity issues.

Broken MCX connectivity after upgrading from MCE2005 to Vista

denmor — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 20:31:00 GMT

We've gotten a few reports where people had MCX working with MCE2005, upgraded to Vista and then lost connectivity. This is due to a couple of bugs in the upgrade code and MCX setup. To fix this issue:

1. In an elevated command window, type mmc
2. In the MMC console, select File, Add/Remove Snap-in..., select “Certificates” and click the Add button
3. Choose Computer account, Local Computer and click the Finish button
4. Click OK
5. In the Certificate management console, expand the Personal node and select Certificates. Delete the "Microsoft Windows Media Center Extender Host" certificate
6. In the Certificates management console, expand the MCX node and select Certificates. Delete the “Microsoft Xbox 360” certificate
7. Close the MMC console
8. Rerun Extender setup

You should now be able to set up your Extender on Vista.

Connecting you to your media : mcx setup

Firewalls, firewalls, how I love thee!

Broken MCX connectivity after upgrading from MCE2005 to Vista