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Utilities for Windows Media Center 2005 and Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate

OCUR BIOS Check Utility - This utility will allow you to quickly check to see if your Windows Vista PC has the correct information in the BIOS to be “Digital Cable Ready”.  This is necessary for the use of Digital Cable/OCUR tuners. To use, extract the BAT and EXE files from the ZIP, to the same folder on your hard disk. Then double click the OCURCHECK.BAT file to execute it. NOTE: This utility is only for use on Windows Vista, as MCE 2005 does not support Digital Cable Tuners.

MCE 2005 Share Recorded TV - This utility has not been tested in Windows Vista.

MCE Live TV Buffer Manager - (MCE 2005 and Vista) - Allows you to change the size of the Live TV Pause Buffer from 30 minutes, up to two hours in 15 minute increments.  Based on code by Schmecky at: TheGreenButton.com.

Upgrade from MCE 2002 to MCE 2004

For users who missed the opportunity to upgrade to Media Center 2004, there’s good news.  Service Pack 2 for Windows XP, will automatically upgrade the previous version of Media Center to Media Center 2004. 

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter/upgrade/default.asp

Electronic Program Guide download and Media Center Extender connection issues

McAfee’s Privacy Service is currently known to cause problems with the Media Center Extender’s ability to connect to the Media Center host PC.  It can also prevent the Media Center PC from being able to download the data for the Electronic Program Guide. At this time, there is no work around. The only fix is to uninstall McAfee’s Privacy Service.

DVD Decoders

A list of available DVD Decoders (required for Recorded TV and DVD playback) and where they can be purchased.

Windows Media Center Resources

Windows Media Center Extender