Missing main menu items in WMC7

[barnabas1969]

Sort of...but he could have installed the drivers without going through live TV setup. I've seen people do stranger things.

Good point. Running TV Setup (after installing the drivers/software) is important.

[thechemist]

The horizontal groups of menu items that show up on my laptop are

Extras
Pictures + Videos
Music
Tasks

The other 3 are missing, which is the problem I am trying to solve.

In the reg key file you asked me to look at I did not see any entries on Movies and the entry for Hide TV did not have any effect on making the missing TV menu item appear.

No this laptop does not have a TV tuner but I do have Recorded TV programs captured on another desktop system that I would like to link to and watch from the new laptop. Also there are Movies on the new laptop hard drive that I would like to link to and watch but can't until since that menu item is missing.

[richard1980]

The menu items available in each strip depends on the status of live TV setup, but the strips should still appear in the main menu even before you go through live TV setup (in fact, the initial live TV setup menu option resides in the OOTB TV strip).

[barnabas1969]

I don't know what the original problem is, but I think the OP needs to change the Hide TV setting in the registry back to zero (see this post).

[thechemist]

So I downloaded the software Holidayboy recommended in his post called hidemediacenterstrips.exe and ran it. This program initially shows all menu items checked. I could uncheck the strips - Extras, Muisc, Task and run the program and in each case the strip that was unchecked would not show up when WMC was launched. However checking or unchecking the box for the Movies or TV and then run the program had no effect on these items when WMC was launched - they were always missing. This seems to imply that some part of the WMC program itself is missing or corrupted. Is there a way to reinstall just the WMC software without having to do a complete reinstall of the Windows 7 ultimate operating system?

[tzr916]

Windows Control Panel
Programs
Uninstall Programs
Turn Windows Features Off (left side pane)
Media Features
Un-check Windows Media Center and click Ok
Reboot when done
I don't know if there is any extra cleanup that YOU need to do
To install WMC repeat the above process

[thechemist]

tzr916 Thanks for your suggestion. I had tried this idea before and I did just try it again. It had not effect on restoring the missing menu items. I don't believe going through the steps you outlined really does uninstall and reinstall WMC but only turns it on or off. Too bad fr me that it did not work.

[holidayboy]

You could turn wmc off again in control panel, delete the c:\windows\ehome folder and c:\programdata\microsoft\ehome folder, then go through the registry and manually delete all media center keys I guess (starting with hklm\software\microsoft\windows\currentversion\media center ) - then reboot and turn wmc back on in control panel.

Its a very brave step to take though and I have no idea if it will do any good.

I'd definitely create a system image first!

[thechemist]

Thanks to all but I have not found a solution to this problem. I'd decided not to try the last suggestion by holidayboy, just seemed like a very long shot at solving my problem with the potential to foul up my operating system.
Thanks again to all who tried to help.