Finally have a working fix that hopefully stops the channels disappearing, and other channels reappearing, Guide disappearing and all those lovely things that just annoy us here in Australia – Argghhhh…..
Step A: Keepkey no longer works. So if you have it installed – remove it.
To remove Keep Key –
1. Start Button / All Programs / Accessories
2. Right click on Command Prompt / Run as Administrator
3. Type in the command prompt net stop “keep key”
4. Close the command prompt
5. Optionally delete the C:\KeepKey directory and any zip files – you no longer need them
Step B: Make sure your guide is setup the way you want it – have all of the channels correct, guide listings associated with it.
Step C: Stop the MCUpdate process from stuffing your guide up again
1. Click on the Start Button
2. Search for the Task Scheduler – just type Task Scheduler in the search input box at the bottom and press enter
3. The Task Scheduler will now be running (after the usual Vista are you sure prompts)
4. On the left hand side, drill through the selections Task Scheduler Library / Microsoft- / Windows- / Media Center
5. In the middle panel, you will see the tasks, Right click on MCUpdate and choose Disable
Your done…
Your guide should now stay pristine – what have we done?
Well every day (8am in my case) my computer contacts Microsoft asking for any updates relevant to Media Center, its not related to drivers and things like that – its checking to see if there is any specific items for MCE… Things like new Online Spotlight applications. It is during this update it also refreshes certain registry items the way it thinks it should… and of course since we use unauthorized guide applications, Microsoft update resets some stupid things on us – thus mucking up our guide data…
Turning off the MCUpdate process means you will not see any new Online Spotlight applications (big deal eh in Australia – not much of interest eh?) – but at least your guide will be clean.
Last words of warning;
- we have turned off the scheduled task, but this task is run whenever you do a fresh install of Media Center, or when you go through the setup process. So at some stage if you accidentally go through the Settings / General / Windows Media Center Setup option again – your guide will muck up, and you may need to repeat Step B and Step C again.
- If you use the optimization options in Windows Media Center – it appears to have no effect (?) – the MCUpdate task does not appear to start / run – it seems to stay disabled
- Turning this task off should not impede anything else – you will still get Windows updates / Office Updates / Ultimate application delivery – as far as I know at present – its just going to be updates to Online Spotlight
- In theory – if you learn from others that the Online Spotlight has been updated, simply turn the task back on, run it, get the update, fix your guide, and turn the MCUpdate back off… That’s a whole lot better than changing the channel order and guide information daily….
And lastly – Use at your own caution…. It appears to be working for me. My machine is not broken – I am still recording, the Xbox360 still streams, no men in black suits have arrived at my door. But its your risk – this is an unsupported patch, not from Microsoft, and we really can not tell what the consequences are in doing anything. All I can say is that I had the problem, and this appears to have fixed it for me (with very limited testing).
I am not a big online spotlight fan – so I don’t mind missing the updates… Until some real content arrives – whatever happened to Reuters and the other items we used to have in this region – oh that’s right, Australia fell off the map of the world again….
I hope this fixes your guide issues as well as it does for me
