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February 11th, 2010 07:00
Getting XP Media Center to work again
My M2010 came with windows xp home theater version. There is a program called Media Center that is a part of the windows xp program, not an application that can be reinstalled. Mr Media Center software stopped working, probably because MS updates and others so called upgrades messed up its connections and drivers. I wanted to reinstall Media Center by using the CD ROM install disk supplied with this PC, however it gives me a warning that the version of windows is too old in the CD ROM. Now I am left wondering what to do. Isn't there an easier way to reinstall the Media center than to reinstall windows? Gene
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RoHe
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February 11th, 2010 16:00
That's probably because the CD has XP SP2 but your hard drive has XP SP3.
If this just happened, you might be able to do a System Restore to last date available when things worked:
Click Start>Help & Support
Click OK
Click "Undo changes..."
Follow prompts and pick last date when it was working correctly.
All software and updates originailly installed after the date used for the restore will have to be reinstalled to close the security holes that Microsoft identified. But you may end up with the same problem again. At least one of this week's XP updates caused some problems, so if you can get your system back to where it was, you might want to wait a few days before doing any additional updates, while Microsoft figures out this latest stupid problem.
You could create a slip-streamed CD containing XP from your CD and SP3 downloaded from Microsoft to do a repair/reinsall but it's a bit geeky to do that...
You could try using sfc to replace any missing/corrupted XP files, but it may also complain unless it finds the right backup copies of the files on your hard drive.
Click Start>Run
Type in: sfc /scannow
Click OK
Insert XP CD if it's requested, and reboot when it's done.
Ron
DrGene
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February 13th, 2010 04:00
Thanks for the suggestions. I did restore to the earliest version. That did not fix the problem because the oldest restore point was too new. I think what I need to so is reinstall the xp to whatever version is on the CDrom (2005 version of xp and dell copyright of 2006), hopefully without having to reinstall all the apps. Then verify that media center works, then install sp3 and see if media center still works. Then turn off the windows xp auto updates. I have another pc that I used to have win 2k on it and installed xp on that pc and then updated to sp3 and turned off all auto updates. I made a cd backup of that installed xp with sp3 and turned off MS retstore. When something goes wrong with that pc, I just restore my backup. Thats a static situation where I do not plan on adding apps once the xp and sp3 are installed and the backup made. Its too bad that MS most likely destroyed their own program and do not have a fix for it. The Media Center program is useful for connecting your pc to a tv screen monitor and playing content off the internet. I plan on using this PC to do that and wanted to insure the Media Center continues to work.
RoHe
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February 13th, 2010 12:00
Did you try sfc /scannow ?
If sfc doesn't fix it, then you will have to do a Repair/Reinstall. Personal files and software you installed should be ok after sfc.
Ron