Hard Answers

Enable EPG TV Guide In Media Center

Enable EPG TV Guide in Media Center

How to enable the Electronic Program Guide for TV broadcasts in Vista or XP Media Center for use in Australia.

Note: Windows 7’s Media Center (and Vista Media Center with the TV Pack 2008 update) are able to get the EPG data from the digital stream from the tuner, so will not need this workaround. They will still say they can’t use EPG data during the TV tuning stage, but once you’ve tuned some channels you’ll start to get EPG data.

If you live in a country such as Australia, where Microsoft have been unable or unwilling to license usage rights for electronic programme guides, you’ll find that the TV Guide section of your Media Center is woefully nonexistent.

If you like watching TV on your Media Center, the lack of TV Guide is a fairly annoying limitation. Fortunately, there’s a very easy workaround.

There are several sites that provide alternative guide data in situations such as this. One of them is epgStream.net. To set up your Media Center to use epgStream.net’s TV Guide, follow the simple instructions on their site. You’ll need to register for their service, but it’s free.

Note that you will need a Microsoft Hotfix and a registry update file if you are using Vista Media Center. Normally, you’d have to contact Microsoft to get this hotfix, but it’s available for download from the downloads section of www.xpmediacentre.com.au. Once again, you’ll need to register, but once again, it’s free. Alternatively, download this RAR file (KB935685_-_32_bit.rar, 193 KB) which contains the hotfix and required registry file, but note that we take no responsibility if using this causes problems. Once you have obtained the hotfix and registry file, install the hotfix and merge the registry file with your registry (usually by double-clicking it).

More Information

For more information about:

• epgStream.net see epgstream.net
• Media Center, see thegreenbutton.com and www.xpmediacentre.com.au
• Electronic Program Guides, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_program_guide
• Microsoft KB935685 Hotfix, see support.microsoft.com/kb/935685

Updated about 5 mths, 27 days ago (August 11, 2011). Know a better answer? Let us know!

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