[Rafael]

Actually verification is done in more than just ehShell.exe. It's done in most of the DLLs as well (EPG, etc).

More edits for MCE toys can be found on the main page of my site (http://vortex2050.dyndns.org:8080)

[Microshit]

dont wate your time on this board! revise that guide! :lol: Cant wait :yes:

[badjunk]

Rafael, on Sep 6 2004, 20:50, said:

Actually verification is done in more than just ehShell.exe. It's done in most of the DLLs as well (EPG, etc).

Hmmm, my tuner is not supported by MCE 2004 (maybe this will change in MCE 2005), so I don't (can't) use EPG. All other components (Music, Videos, Pictures, DVD, Online spotlight) work 100%.

[DigitalDude2005]

Here's a question i have. Is there any possible way you can hack it so the EPG shows up even if u dont have a tv tuner because i can find that useful to know whats on TV.

[roddy]

Microshit, on Aug 15 2004, 19:00, said:

I do:
I open cmd and browse to where I have thouse two fiels and type in ilasm /resource:ehshell.res /exe ehshell.il . THEN I GET AN ERROR. What am I doing wrong?

I GET the SAME ERROR.
Help please, give more detailed instruction
TIA

[Rafael]

Open the IL file in resource hacker and rename the resource below the ?? and call it NEUTRALSTRINGS.XML, save and recompile.

[roddy]

Rafael, on Sep 9 2004, 21:37, said:

Open the IL file in resource hacker and rename the resource below the ?? and call it NEUTRALSTRINGS.XML, save and recompile.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Res Hack says EHSHELL.IL is not 32 bit Executable
maybe, EhShel.res? I'll try ...

YES IT WORKS!!! THANKS IT IS GREAT :-)

This post has been edited by roddy: 09 September 2004 - 11:57 PM

[Rafael]

Sorry that's what I meant :)

[knight_dkn]

Well after 2 days of fiddling with the ehshell.exe code I've finally done it!
...
..
.

Oh right, you want to know what I did :)

Well someone asked earlier on in this thread so I'll spend a little time showing you. When ehshell.exe executes it has a quick sook about there not being compatiable video drivers or a compatiable video card present. Specifically it says "Your video card or drivers are not compatible with Media Center"

Now I know this is a non-critcal error and it won't crash MCE, in fact most of you probably have compatiable (or hacked) video drivers and don't see this annoying little bugger. But for those of us that just want to play our XviD's and DivX's on that little HP e-Vectra (no PCI slots) we've had for ages it's a realy pain.

So, how did I perform this increadable feat of daring-do?
Well it started with the guide created by that great and powerful code wizard, Rafael. Using the same method to decompile and edit the ehshell.exe file I set about tracing the resources and strings that provide us with that mind-bending message telling us we have the wrong video card.

"Simple" I hear all the other Uber-Nerds say, well yes, in theory... unfortunatly skipping the checks for the required DirectX components or simple reversing the output of the checks makes Media Center fall apart worse than Windows ME <_< .
I tried dozens of different approaches, most while getting rid of the message cause MCE to produce only a black screen, some of the more devious tricks like replacing the entire video checking method/sub-routine with null routines make it crash... badly. There's something that goes on in the hardware checks that sets up the display API's for MCE and I just don't understand what it is so I gave up and followed the code out into the main program...

Eventually after much trial and a hell of a lot of errors I decided to try bypassing the routine that actually displays the error messages. Now if I've done things right MCE should, in theory, not be able to bother us with any more error messages. Hopefully this is a help in other areas too.

Okay, nuts and bolts time...

1. Decompile ehshell.exe acording to Rafael's guide
2. Open ehshell.il in your favourite editor, I like EditPlus
3. Goto line 508137 and look for...

IL_0000:  call       class ServiceBus.UIFramework.PageBasedUCPService ServiceBus.UIFramework.PageBasedUCPService::get_DefaultUCP()

4. Replace this entire line with...

IL_0000:  ret

5. Recompile and replace your old error giving ehshell.exe with the new submissive version and enjor and error free MCE'ing.

Now all of this is base on MCE 2005 RC0 from MSDN and this patch works fine with Rafael's. I realise there is probably an easier way to do this but I wasn't able to find one and I'm not vary familiar with .net.

Sorry for the long post but the only one here to talk to is my cat and I'm not talking to him at the moment so i'm lonely.

[Rafael]

Nice trick knight :)

[Saintly]

thanks knight.. I'll keep that in mind :)

[knight_dkn]

Question boys and girls, whats the deal with patching medctrro.exe? I've seen refrence to it here and there but I haven't read anything as to why it needs to be patched or how?

[freak_powa]

I do not have to patch medctrro.exe but MCE seems to work fine (well some codecs problems and long time to start playing video ...)

Just one thing, i must copy medctroc.inf and .pnf in C:\Windows\inf directory

I don't have remote controler.

[Rafael]

I patched it because during RunOnce mode, it prints out to the log that 'this machine has not been identify as MCE'. I'm not sure if it's excluding commands because of this, hence why I just patched it. Details to follow.

[Smith]

Is there anyway to find out what pid's are accepted? I think the file 'medctroc.dll' makes the check during install.
The pid's I know are accepted are 119 and 365.. are there any more?