Is the Win 8.1 MC Experience better than 8.0?

[allanmb]

I have been a user of WMC for many years since the Vista version. I currently have a great setup running Win 7 MC but would like to get my PC to boot faster. A while back I installed Windows 8 and purchased the MC add-on. I was greatly disappointed as it wouldn't boot straight into MC and there were compatibility issues which I would hope should be fixed by now. I was considering trying out Win 8.1 but thought I would ask if there have been any improvements to it since 8.0? Can we easily get Media Centre to boot directly into it? Does the green button on the remote now work? What are the pros and cons with the latest WMC versus WMC7?
Thanks

[Bryan]

If you're on 7, for MC there's no reason to upgrade. Don't forget, MC is dead, nothing improved. Don't get me wrong, in my limits experience with it, it works fine, it's just the same (though I believe the 360 is the only extender that works).

Regarding boot, is the OS on an SSD? That'll help more than anything.

[allanmb]

Yes my HTPC and Main PC are both on the same SSD. The Main PC boots up in 8 secs running Win 8.1, the Win 7 HTPC takes about 25 secs to boot up

[bob_p]

I'm running WMC on Windows 8.1 - and have been able to configure the system so it boots up WMC.

Running on the same hardware, my W7 system took a very long time to reboot. As I recall, W7 booted pretty quickly when it was first installed, so I suspect the slowdown was possibly due to degradation in the W7 image over several years - and that reinstalling W7 might have returned it back to quickly booting.

However, I've been running W8 and now W8.1 since they were both released - and haven't noticed any slowdown in boot times.

Other than the boot time improvement - haven't seen any significant benefits in running on 8.1 vs. 7.

[Shark007]

If you own a SmartTV, the Windows 8.1 'Play To' functionality is vastly superior to that available in Windows 7.
'Play To' = rightclick a video file in Windows Explorer and choose 'Play To' from the rightclick menu.

With proper software installed, (Shark007 Codecs)
this functionality will use the LAV filters for playback of an MKV file with full audio/video quality.

[mdavej]

To answer the original question, WMC is identical in 7, 8.0 and 8.1.

To boot straight to WMC in 8.x, just add a shortcut to the startup folder.

I know the green button works inside WMC. I don't remember if it would launch WMC or not, but I think it does. If it doesn't, it's easy enough to make that happen in the registry with keyboard shortcuts or Event Ghost.

[3rob3]

It does, it just takes two clicks of the Green Button to launch WMC in 8/8.1.

[Tester]

@allanmb
Win7 can boot as fast as Win8 as long as your motherboard has an UEFI bios and you can use Win7x64 ( x32 not supported).
Although my HTPC is a bit older, I am using an Asus UEFI bios mobo which allows me to boot up in a few secs. More importantly, my HTPC now wakes in less than 2 secs, maybe faster.

When I tried Win8, the remote green button did launch WMC and I was able to get it to run at boot by using MCE Standby. But, as another member pointed out, you can simply add it to your start menu.. If I remember correctly, I think there is a reg setting you can update to get it to run at boot ( I believe this is how MCE Standby handles it ).

In my opinion, outside of what Shark pointed out, there is NO reason to switch to Win8 when running WMC..

Lastly, why do U need to boot so much ? Why not simply sleep your system like most people do ?

[LuckyDay]

Can we easily get Media Centre to boot directly into it?

Yes. Place the program in the startup folder and it will start with windows. Or you can get a program like MCE Reset Toolbox and customize that and more (costs $5 and well worth it)

Does the green button on the remote now work?

Yes

What are the pros and cons with the latest WMC versus WMC7?

Not much difference overall. A couple very small changes. Not really any pros, but no cons either in my experience.

[allanmb]

@allanmb, why do U need to boot so much ? Why not simply sleep your system like most people do ?

I have to do a full boot as I have a Silverstone CW-03 case with an iMon LCD monitor on the front. If I go to sleep, the iMon driver doesn't work when waking up so I have to do a full boot

One downside of Win8 WMC for me is that I bought My Channel Logos for Win7, and now they want more money to upgrade to a Win8.1 compatible version. I wonder what other plugins are not going to be compatible that I am used to using...

[allanmb]

@allanmb
Win7 can boot as fast as Win8 as long as your motherboard has an UEFI bios and you can use Win7x64 ( x32 not supported).
Although my HTPC is a bit older, I am using an Asus UEFI bios mobo which allows me to boot up in a few secs. More importantly, my HTPC now wakes in less than 2 secs, maybe faster.

Yes it is Win7 x64, but I don't think my motherboard has UEFI. It's an Asus M4A785TD-M EVO. I can't find anything on the specs to suggest it is UEFI

[Tester]

It looks like your mobo is not UEFI, so that means the boot time will be the same in Win8.. nothing really will change from an HTPC point of view.

What I have learned over the years is that you will never get everything on your HTPC, actually the more you add the worst things get. I have learned since that time to simply keep it as simple as possible and sacrifice a few things over performance/stability. To that end, I suggest you either resolve that imon driver issue or simply forget about and start sleeping/waking your pc instead of booting all the time.

As far as MyChannelLogo, I suggest you simply copy the program x86 and programdata folders, format, then copy them back.. Thats what I do when I format my machine, works fine.. and I am sure it will work on win8..

[deihmos]

If you're on 7, for MC there's no reason to upgrade. Don't forget, MC is dead, nothing improved. Don't get me wrong, in my limits experience with it, it works fine, it's just the same (though I believe the 360 is the only extender that works).

Regarding boot, is the OS on an SSD? That'll help more than anything.

That's not true. Some of the bugs had in n7 no longer exist in 8.1 plus it is much faster.

[jec6613]

If you're on 7, for MC there's no reason to upgrade. Don't forget, MC is dead, nothing improved. Don't get me wrong, in my limits experience with it, it works fine, it's just the same (though I believe the 360 is the only extender that works).

Regarding boot, is the OS on an SSD? That'll help more than anything.

That's not true. Some of the bugs had in n7 no longer exist in 8.1 plus it is much faster.

This is correct - if you have the choice at no additional cost, Windows 8.1 is better (aside from being supported for longer). The transitions on lower end GPUs are better, there are fewer crashes, and the entire system is more responsive. Additionally, 8.1 has about a 500 MB smaller memory footprint than Windows 7 on a clean bootup, supports newer APIs, and a slew of other improvements.

It's not tons better, but I was very happy with it for a year, until I had a reason to roll back to 7 (Hauppauge HDPVR stopped working, it'll work in 8.1 so long as you upgrade from 7, for a while ...) and just went back to 8.1 using a Silicondust HDHR3-CC. Going back to 7 was jarring with the poor transitions and having to restart once a week and it not holding resolution through a receiver power off, and going back to 8.1 was a very nice change.

The best way I can describe it is that Windows 8.1 was as responsive running on an old 7.2k drive as Windows 7 was on an SSD.

[deihmos]

I have that problem with Windows 7 not holding the resolution even after adjusting it. It does not happen on Win 8.1. imo the start screen looks great on an HTPC and some of the apps like Vevo and Netflix are great.

[allanmb]

It looks like your mobo is not UEFI, so that means the boot time will be the same in Win8.. nothing really will change from an HTPC point of view.

Windows 8 certainly booted much faster for me whilst I had it installed before.

[allanmb]

If you're on 7, for MC there's no reason to upgrade. Don't forget, MC is dead, nothing improved. Don't get me wrong, in my limits experience with it, it works fine, it's just the same (though I believe the 360 is the only extender that works).

Regarding boot, is the OS on an SSD? That'll help more than anything.

That's not true. Some of the bugs had in n7 no longer exist in 8.1 plus it is much faster.

Yes, the biggest ones for me are the pictures/music libraries. I have thousands of items in both and it hangs the Win7 MC for a long time. Windows 8 MC is much better in this regard

[Crash2009]

Yes, the biggest ones for me are the pictures/music libraries. I have thousands of items in both and it hangs the Win7 MC for a long time. Windows 8 MC is much better in this regard

Picture this, you have 2 file clerks in charge of organizing your music files, and you tell them both to file a song titled Purple Haze. For those of you too young to know what Purple Haze is....1967/Jimmy Hendrix Experience/ Are you Experienced/ Purple Haze.

Clerk 1 files the song 1967/Jimmy Hendrix Experience/ Are you Experienced/ Purple Haze/

Clerk 2 simply files the song inside a folder named Music/Purple Haze/

You come along and tell both clerks to go get me the Purple Haze file. Which Clerk will return the file to you the quickest?

The point is, WMC is responsible for the organizing, the more we try to help out, by organizing folder inside folder inside folder, the more we slow her down.

Try this, throw 10,000 single music or picture files inside a folder, and watch how quickly WMC does her job. She will index it once, and load it instantly the next time. Technically, I could be 100% wrong about this, this is just a personal observation on my own system.

[allanmb]

Yes, the biggest ones for me are the pictures/music libraries. I have thousands of items in both and it hangs the Win7 MC for a long time. Windows 8 MC is much better in this regard

Picture this, you have 2 file clerks in charge of organizing your music files, and you tell them both to file a song titled Purple Haze. For those of you too young to know what Purple Haze is....1967/Jimmy Hendrix Experience/ Are you Experienced/ Purple Haze.

Clerk 1 files the song 1967/Jimmy Hendrix Experience/ Are you Experienced/ Purple Haze/

Clerk 2 simply files the song inside a folder named Music/Purple Haze/

You come along and tell both clerks to go get me the Purple Haze file. Which Clerk will return the file to you the quickest?

The point is, WMC is responsible for the organizing, the more we try to help out, by organizing folder inside folder inside folder, the more we slow her down.

Try this, throw 10,000 single music or picture files inside a folder, and watch how quickly WMC does her job. She will index it once, and load it instantly the next time. Technically, I could be 100% wrong about this, this is just a personal observation on my own system.

Unfortunately, that's not how databases work. Could you imagine if Google required all websites to have no folders so it could return your searches on time

[Ladislaus]

I use a Windows 8.1-based Windows Media Center HTPC with a Ceton InfiniTV 4 USB device. I boot directly to the desktop (*not* the Start screen) and auto-run WMC.

Can we easily get Media Centre to boot directly into it?

Sort of. I had to manually create a shortcut ("%windir%\ehome\ehshell.exe /mcesuperbar://tv?live=true") in the HTPC's Startup folder ("%AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup"). On boot (or reboot), you will see the desktop for a few seconds before WMC launches. With an SSD system drive, the boot process is fast.

Does the green button on the remote now work?

Yes, it works for my HTPC; I use a Rosewill RRC-126 remote control. That said, I never had a problem with the green button in any version of WMC, either Window 7, Windows 8, or Windows 8.1.

What are the pros and cons with the latest WMC versus WMC7?

Con: WMC in Windows 8 & 8.1 removed the launch at boot setting; this can be "worked around" using the Startup folder shortcut (above). I don't recall any other significant differences between WMC for Win7 vs. Win8/Win8.1.
Pro: In my opinion, the biggest pro in Win8.1 is that you can boot to the desktop, like in all previous versions of Windows. Another side benefit is that my HTPC's operating system is currently the latest version of Windows, so I am (for now) still getting all of the latest updates.

I am very curious to see (& also dreading, at the same time) what happens when MWC-related information is released (or not) for Windows 10.