Can MS disable the WMC setup wizard?

[mercalia]

I am not particulary worried about when MS turns off the EPG service in 4 years time as atleast in the UK Freeview services broadcast it and Media Center will pick that up

What does worry me is initial set up for tv reception when you have to put your post code info to download setup info ( for presumably the EPG? and what else? ). That will also presumably stop working when windows 7/8 ends and MS withdraws any support for Media Center. I have tried canceling that to see what happens and whether the TV tuner card will pull in the Freeview EPG and it dont. nothing.

SO what to do about this? Its all well and good to find that Media Center can be installed on WIndows 10 - but if this crucial aspect stops working and the ota tuner card cant be set up rather pointless?

Are there any threads dealing with this rather important issue

I am in the UK by the way

[Scallica]

SO what to do about this? Its all well and good to find that Media Center can be installed on WIndows 10 - but if this crucial aspect stops working and the ota tuner card cant be set up rather pointless?

Are there any threads dealing with this rather important issue

Use EPG123.

[Crash2009]

SO what to do about this? Its all well and good to find that Media Center can be installed on WIndows 10 - but if this crucial aspect stops working and the ota tuner card cant be set up rather pointless?

Are there any threads dealing with this rather important issue

I am in the UK by the way

In Win7, WMC was included as part of the OS. Over the years, functionality has been stripped by updates to the OS. So, in answer to your question, I would say YES, they could remove ANYTHING they wanted...just like they have done in the past. i.e. internet TV, Sports, etc. and likely more features prior to my time.

There is no WMC in Win10 so therefore there is nothing to "take away" by an update to the OS. WMCv12 is injected into the OS as a stand-alone app. The only way I can think of to prevent the install of WMC in Win10, is to prevent the installation of ANYTHING. We all know if they do that, it wont sell.

Here is a link to the "birth" of WMCv12

http://forums.mydigitallife.info/thread ... ost1200602

[CyberSimian]

What does worry me is initial set up for tv reception when you have to put your post code info to download setup info ( for presumably the EPG? and what else? ). That will also presumably stop working when windows 7/8 ends and MS withdraws any support for Media Center.

When you enter your postcode during initial setup, WMC downloads some sort of definition file that specifies information about the MUXes that you can receive at your location. If Microsoft withdraw that definition file at some point in the future, you may not be able to tune any MUXes. The question is: can WMC perform a "blind scan" to locate the MUXes? I have never seen that facility in WMC with respect to DVB-T/T2 signals.

What to do? You could perform a retune just before withdrawal of support, and immediately create a system image (one that you could restore later if you suffered a disk crash). The problem with that is that if the MUXes were subsequently re-organised, your system image would use the wrong MUXes.

Another possibility is to move to a different media center solution. There are various available. I moved to MediaPortal 18 months ago. I would not describe it as better or worse -- it is simply different. It too uses a definition file of the MUXes available at your location, but it can also perform a blind scan to locate the MUXes (this takes much longer, of course). MediaPortal can also receive the broadcast EPG (including for the high-definition channels, something which WMC cannot do). But MediaPortal does not support true series recording -- it has seven different flavours of repeated recording, but not true series recording.

-- from CyberSimian in the UK

[DavidinCT]

In Win7, WMC was included as part of the OS. Over the years, functionality has been stripped by updates to the OS. So, in answer to your question, I would say YES, they could remove ANYTHING they wanted...just like they have done in the past. i.e. internet TV, Sports, etc. and likely more features prior to my time.

Well, they just disabled those serices because they required 3rd party resources, when they gave them up, if they still showed, they would just error out, I would say MOST of us are happy they did that. Althrough I tested Internet TV (vista and WIn7), it was a joke, 90% of just previews and demos. Never really super usefull. Always used Hulu dekstop app in WMC, as I got full shows.

Same with the sports strip.....One thing I do miss is the "scores" in the sports strip, It was a quck, simple interface to show scores of games. Now just ESPN3 still works but, it's slugish and ad ridden. Sigh...going backwards, not forwards...

To the OP, would it be possable ? Sure, Not sure what Microsoft would put in place once they disable the guide and TV setup. They could just abandon it, by the time they kill it off for good, it will be 10 years from killing it so, it might be their route. Another thing to note, we might have to wait till the Xbox one is kiled off it uses ROVI. So they are sharing guide data (lower cost so they might keep it running longer)

The trick might be finding out what data it acutally pulls down and from where, and changing your "hosts" file to have them point to yourself to get the tuner setup but, beyond that, something like EPG123 would take care of.

Personally in the 5-8 years before WMC is killed off for good, I really hope there is a better and more dynamic HTPC software that is as simple to use as WMC...with Protected content options...