Explorer.exe replacement (1 Viewer)

[D4v1d5]

I was setting up a HTPC and installed MP without any problems. Now I boosted up my XP bootup but when I put Mediaportal.exe as a shell I got a warning of "Nothing will be rendered blablabla".
I was looking around on this forum and found out that MP starts too early and the Direct3D isn't loaded yet. So I searched for other solution but couldn't find a proper solution (wait.exe or something that can delay a batch). But if I use that at startup I can see a command screen that's why I created a explorer.exe replacement.
I thought maybe other people have the same problem as me so I share it with everybody.

Info explorer.exe
- It's a program that don't show any windows or anything (handles in the background).
- It delays the mediaportal from starting up untill everything is loaded.
- Don't really replace this explorer.exe with your explorer.exe in the window directory.
- It reads options from explorer.ini, like the pause time and the mediaportal.exe location.
- You can use this explorer.exe as your shell (change it in the regedit " HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon" and set the value of Shell to the exact location of the custom explorer.exe, for example c:\MediaPortal\explorer.exe)
- You can change the explorer.exe name into anything you like but don't change the name of explorer.ini.

Hope I can help anybody with this.
Enjoy

 

[Jake m]

I my be a bit niave in asking, but doesnt replacing explorer with mediaportal opena can of worms if you ever get problems with the machine? wouldnt it be better to keep explorer for updates and such?

 

[D4v1d5]

Don't know, but I don't use my HTPC for browsing the net I use it just for watching movies and capturing tv shows. If you use this and close mediaportal and hit ctrl+alt+del and file > new task(run...) and type in explorer the real explorer starts up. This replacement if it's finished it closes itself. With this replacement all other services/program (like antivirus) will still run.

btw I don't know about you but I disabled the windows update service because I hate it when you watch a movie or capture a tv show and a pop-up shows that says there are new updates available.

Maybe there are other solutions to this but for me this is for now the best solution.

 

[mikael]

I run mediaportal.exe as shell directly without any problems (winxp mce)

 

[D4v1d5]

hmm that's strange I also have XP MCE and I still get that warning. Maybe because I still use the 0.1.3.0 version of Mediaportal. The new one 0.2.2.0 doesn't support my USB tv tuner.

 

[mikael]

I've used mediaportal.exe as shell on 0.1.3.0 too before.... without any problems. Check if there are any services that are disabled by startup

 

[Marcusb]

if the new version doesn't support your USB tuner, you could try two things (if you want to move to the new one).

1) install the new version and copy the capturecarddefs.xml from .1.3 to the same location in the new one.

2) install the new version with the TV Engine 3. This will pick up any TV card as long as Windows can detect it.

Sorry I can't answer your original problem, but this may help get you "up to date".

 

[D4v1d5]

Services are all on, if I run mediaportal as shell directly it give me the warning but if I give it a delay of 15 seconds it doesn't give me the warning (10 seconds also gave me a warning).
I tried to install 0.2.2 and replace the xml of 0.1.3 but it says no card found. Did the graphedit and it gave me no graph blabla.
I installed tv engine 3 and there it can reconize my usb tv card but in mediaportal still nothing.