Movies discovery service in mce2005 for the UK

[Werner]

*****THIS WILL BREAK YOUR MCE INTERFACE UNTIL I GET MORE HELP WITH VISUAL STUDIO.NET****


Well, in one of the more popular threads it was asked if we could have the movies part showing as the third icon for mce2005 under the "my tv" option. Currently, this part (discovery service) is only available if your mce2005 machine is in the states or canada.

http://htpcnews.com/images/mce2k5/home.jpg is an example of the bit I am talking about

I have some success with this, and would hope to explain what I did and where I need some help now. This is a private thing and may possibly bork your computer totally.

Firstly, you need resource hacker. Or any other winPE resource editor. Open the file ehshell.exe in c:\windows\ehome

Browse with your resource editor to the only xml file you find (in resource hacker it wa sunder 23/neutralstrings.xml/1033
Go to the last few lines, find this part
<string id="Discovery.Supported.CA" value="true"
and change to <string id="Discovery.Supported.GB" value="true"

Now, discovery service is available to USA and GB, instead of USA and CA

Ok, now, the file has changed, so system file protection will kick in. Dont bother with all the registry hacks, just go to c:\windows\system32\restore open filelist.xml and add this line to the <exclude> section near the very top
<REC>%windir%\ehome</REC>

this wil make file protection not care about the ehome directory.
Now, save your new ehshell.exe file to c:\windows\ehome as well as to c:\windows\system32\dllcache

Within a few seconds windows will prompt to overwrite the file, select "cancel". It will then ask if you want to keep the file, select "yes"

Double click ehshell.exe or start mce shell, and, hopefully, your machine should spit out an error message about strong name validation. If this happens then you have done the correct thing. Try start it again, the error should persist. If it doesnt then that means you havent turned turned off file protection for the ehome directory, or havent replaced the copy in dllcache and windows has replaced the "changed" file with a pristine version.

The error occurs because ehshell.exe is signed, and checks the signature when it starts up, and because we have modified it the signature is no longer valid.
TO DO: find some kind soul with visual studio.net2003 to follow these instructions
http://www.codeproject.com/dotnet/NeCoder03.asp
to remove the signature checking to make sure we now have the third icon.

[mclay]

good post! I am a software developer for a living and will give this a look.... will post when i have a result....

[mclay]

had another look at the codeproject link... this can be achieved with the .net SDK as well if anyone else is having a go.

[Werner]

I just tried with the sdk
I got my ehshell.il compiled again using ilasm, but the resulting exe file errors out quite badly. Damn tired right now, plus I'm not a programmer by nature, so just figure things out....I will leave this to you experts...the seeds have been planted though:-)

[mclay]

hi werner,do u use IM like msn?

[Werner]

well, I found this post on tgb
http://www.thegreenbutton.com/commun...47&TopicPage=1
followed the instructions for changing ehshell.exe but either
1) I am thick (VERY possible)
2) I am using the wrong sdk (1.0a wont install on my system here)
3) it is past my bedtime
but I cant get it to work. I compile my ehshell.exe and it generates errors on executing. I have found (on my system) that if ehshell.exe is not in the windows\ehome directory I get an error, but it isnt helping me right now...too much of a long day.

A tip, if you use ldasm, and go file-->dump it will dump an *.il and a *.res. Best plan of attack I can think of is open *.il in wordpad, edit out the "hash algorithms" part. Open *.res in resource hacker, change the xml file, compile, save
Then, use ilasm as in
ilasm.exe /resource:ehshell.res /exe ehshell.il

this creates a valid pe executable, with the correct mce icon, but still errors.

Yes, I have msn messenger
pm me your msn addy and I can add you...two heads work better than one etc etc etc.

[Werner]

well, I finially got it compiled again, but still no thrid icon...bang goes that idea...

[mclay]

ouch (given the time)

was a very impressive attempt!

[Werner]

scratch everything above, found an easier way, courtesy of another forum

You need to change language settings to US by going into Control Panel > Regional and Language Settings > Languages Tab > Details Button and change default input language to United States
Then we need to fool PC into using UK Keyboard layout under the United States as Langauge....
The registry keys below will change to US 409 codepage BUT will retain UK keyboard layout as the UK DLL will be loaded instead of the US one meaning your keys are properly mapped!

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Keyboard Layouts\00000409]
"Layout File"="KBDUK.DLL"
"Layout Text"="United Kingdom"
"Layout Display Name"="@%SystemRoot%\\system32\\input.dll,-5000"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Keyboard Layout\DosKeybCodes]
"00000409"="uk"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Media Center\Settings\MCE.GlobalSettings]
"systemGeoISO2"="US"

voila! now I have a movies icon

[mclay]

excellent..... didnt quite work for me... seems too easy to get something wrong! lol...

[Werner]

just follow the steps one by one. The important part is the bit about control panel....that will activate the movie icon (as well as the registry change to geoiso2)

The rest of the changes is to ensure the keyboard remains a uk layout, even though you have selected US. They wil only take effect after a reboot

[mclay]

lol ok i get it, changed the registry, and the settings, and windows changed it back. lol Ill keep at it!

[chrise]

Werner you are a genius or at least whoever worked this out is/was.

Works like a dream here..

Manty thanks

Chris

[mclay]

did you guys delete the UK entry under the keyboard layouts so ther is only one to choose? Can I assume the locale of your pc is still UK?

sorry to sound so blinkin thick, but I changed all of these and the registry just resets itself, can only think that there is something else that I have set somewhere.

Matt

[chrise]

It worked exactly as Werner says using Regedit and only copying the text between the quotes.

So far the thumbnails are not loading in the guide (I assume these do in the US) but the information is correct for UK including genres etc. One of the hidden parts of MCE 2005 I particular wanted.