Windows 7 Legacy Life

Discuss Vista Media Center & XP Media Center Edition
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gary94080

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Windows 7 Legacy Life

#1

Post by gary94080 » Thu Jul 17, 2014 2:52 am

now that it has been announced that Windows 7 will not be supported soon, what advice or recommendations do current legacy users have for those of us about to join you.

have there been issues of getting guide or channel updates?

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#2

Post by barnabas1969 » Thu Jul 17, 2014 3:13 am

According to Microsoft, Windows 7 will receive "mainstream" support until 1/13/2015 with extended support until 1/14/2020. Windows 8 Professional, which (if you buy it) contains Media Center (virtually unchanged from Win7), will receive "mainstream" support until 1/9/2018 with extended support until 1/10/2023.

There have been hiccups with guide data for years, and Microsoft does not promise continued guide data for any version of Windows. There are alternative solutions for getting guide data if/when Microsoft stops providing the guide data, and they cost around $20/year.

My advice is to go ahead and use Win7 Media Center if you're a techie who doesn't mind fiddling with the system to get it setup correctly, and you're willing to stop fiddling once you have it working well (if it ain't broke, don't fix it).

gary94080

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#3

Post by gary94080 » Thu Jul 17, 2014 5:24 am

I was listening to a tech reporter on the radio a few days ago and I don't remember the source of the information but the discussion was that the end of support and updates for Windows 7 was going to be accelerated and not what was indicated on the MS website.

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mark1234

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#4

Post by mark1234 » Thu Jul 17, 2014 9:44 am

You should take that as a hint to ignore everything that tech reporter ever says again. The published support lifecycles are part of the deal that MS has with corporates to give them confidence in investing in a certain version of Windows. If anything, Win7 support will be extended as it was for NT4 and XP, but that's years away before it might happen.

7MC uses the same guide data feed as 8MC, so for as long as MS support 8MC (as much as they do, anyway) you'll be fine with 7MC.
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CyberSimian

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#5

Post by CyberSimian » Thu Jul 17, 2014 10:15 am

gary94080 wrote:have there been issues of getting guide or channel updates?
If you read the "Terms and Conditions" applying to the EPG (as I did when I first set up WMC), you will see that Microsoft reserves the right to discontinue the EPG on one month's notice. This is independent of the period of time for which maintenance may be available for the operating system.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

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#6

Post by richard1980 » Fri Jul 18, 2014 5:25 pm

CyberSimian wrote:If you read the "Terms and Conditions" applying to the EPG (as I did when I first set up WMC), you will see that Microsoft reserves the right to discontinue the EPG on one month's notice.
The terms of service actually state: "Furthermore, Microsoft may discontinue providing the EPG at any time."

That said, the EPG service has to remain available for WES7 to use until July 27, 2025 (the date that WES7 support/licensing/distribution stops). So that's the earliest that Microsoft could discontinue the EPG service. Although at any time between now and then Microsoft could decide that only WES7 can access the EPG service, or they could even decide to charge us to use it (with 30 days' notice, per the terms of service).

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#7

Post by RyC » Fri Jul 18, 2014 5:27 pm

If they say they can discontinue providing the EPG at any time, why does it have to remain available for WES7?

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mark1234

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#8

Post by mark1234 » Sat Jul 19, 2014 9:40 am

They don't have to maintain it for every region either.
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#9

Post by richard1980 » Sat Jul 19, 2014 5:57 pm

RyC wrote:If they say they can discontinue providing the EPG at any time, why does it have to remain available for WES7?
The EPG service is included as part of the Additional Terms for Runtime Licenses for WES7 Runtime.

It's also important to note that the Terms of Service displayed in WMC and on Microsoft's website are only the terms of service for end users and nothing within is applicable to contracts between Microsoft and OEMs.
mark1234 wrote:They don't have to maintain it for every region either.
That's true. They could easily keep the service alive but discontinue providing data for specific regions.

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#10

Post by blueiedgod » Tue Jul 22, 2014 5:00 pm

Does XBOX ONE use the same Guide feed as WMC?

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#11

Post by richard1980 » Wed Jul 23, 2014 1:08 am

I don't know but it makes sense that Microsoft would use the same guide data source for both WMC and OneGuide.

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#12

Post by barnabas1969 » Wed Jul 23, 2014 1:27 pm

It would have "made sense" if Microsoft had made the Xbox One capable of connecting to a tuner and acting as a DVR, but they didn't do what "made sense".

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#13

Post by blueiedgod » Fri Jul 25, 2014 4:32 pm

barnabas1969 wrote:It would have "made sense" if Microsoft had made the Xbox One capable of connecting to a tuner and acting as a DVR, but they didn't do what "made sense".
It is capable, just not enabled, yet.

From what I understand, XBOX ONE is just a x64 PC, similar to the original XBOX, and unlike the 360.

It is also my understanding that XBOX ONE OS uses Windows kernel.

It may take someone from XBMC community to adapt the code from the original XBOX XBMC to the XBOX ONE to enable that functionality. :-)

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#14

Post by barnabas1969 » Fri Jul 25, 2014 5:38 pm

blueiedgod wrote:
barnabas1969 wrote:It would have "made sense" if Microsoft had made the Xbox One capable of connecting to a tuner and acting as a DVR, but they didn't do what "made sense".
It is capable, just not enabled, yet.

From what I understand, XBOX ONE is just a x64 PC, similar to the original XBOX, and unlike the 360.

It is also my understanding that XBOX ONE OS uses Windows kernel.

It may take someone from XBMC community to adapt the code from the original XBOX XBMC to the XBOX ONE to enable that functionality. :-)
OK, but it would not support copy-protected content. Microsoft should port Media Center (or something similar) to the Xbox One. That would make it worth the price of admission, especially if it supported XBox360 (and maybe also XBox One) extenders.

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#15

Post by blueiedgod » Mon Jul 28, 2014 4:53 pm

barnabas1969 wrote:
blueiedgod wrote:
barnabas1969 wrote:It would have "made sense" if Microsoft had made the Xbox One capable of connecting to a tuner and acting as a DVR, but they didn't do what "made sense".
It is capable, just not enabled, yet.

From what I understand, XBOX ONE is just a x64 PC, similar to the original XBOX, and unlike the 360.

It is also my understanding that XBOX ONE OS uses Windows kernel.

It may take someone from XBMC community to adapt the code from the original XBOX XBMC to the XBOX ONE to enable that functionality. :-)
OK, but it would not support copy-protected content. Microsoft should port Media Center (or something similar) to the Xbox One. That would make it worth the price of admission, especially if it supported XBox360 (and maybe also XBox One) extenders.

XBMC won't support protected content.

XBOX ONE is running WMC, just castrated version of it.

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