Why Does Windows Media Player Keep Minimizing
Apr 04, 2012 To display a minimized window, follow these steps carefully: 1. Cmd Tab to that window 2. Release the Tab key keep pressing the Cmd down 3. Press the.
Nov 14, 2011 Before the Internet, updates such as service packs and patches were impossibly hard to come by. You ordered upgrade media or maybe bought a.
If you ve moved from XP to Windows 7, this might be the first time you ve had access to Media Center. Here we ve created a guide for our best tips, tricks, and tutorials for using Windows 7 Media Center.
Note: Windows 7 Media Center is only available in Windows Home Premium and above.
Getting Started Watching TV
If you are new to Windows 7 Media Center, you ll want to take a look at our beginner s guide which shows you how to set up WMC for viewing Live TV, Recording, Streaming Video, Netflix, and more.
If your PC has a tuner card it may seem like a daunting task to set up to watch live TV. But in fact Windows makes it easy with a simple to use wizard driven interface that walks you through the process, and finds all your channels for you. For more check out our article on how to setup live TV in WMC.
Now that you have your Live TV setup, you can start tweaking the experience. If you are a fan of being able to control TV like a DVR you might want to increase the live TV pause buffer with a registry tweak. This will prevent the annoyance of pausing live TV while you go do something then come back and the program is playing again.
Then you might want to customize the Channel Guide. You can start by adding TV channel Logos, then add color coding to the Program Guide.
Finally, if you like to watch a lot of live TV in WMC, you might want it to always start in live TV Mode. This will allow you to avoid a few menu navigation steps and bring you right to where you want to be automatically. There are also other startup customizations you can use that will kick it off in other areas like the Movies or Music Library.
Watch Streaming Video
If you don t have a TV Tuner Card installed on your computer, you can still freely watch online content from major networks like ShowTime, CBS, and others with limited commercials. When the Internet TV feature was first launched, the selection wasn t that great, but at the time of this writing, a lot more content has been added.
Not only can you watch current streaming content, but it also provides cool classic shows like Star Trek, Hawaii 5.0, Twilight Zone, and more. For more check out our article on How to Watch TV without a Tuner Card in Windows 7 Media Center.
Since WMC is meant to be your central hub for all things media, you can add the ability to watch YouTube videos. This way you can watch YouTube from the comfort of your couch or from your PC without having to open a browser session.
If that isn t enough programming for you, check out our articles on adding even more streaming channels with TunerFree MCE or SecondRunTV.
Use Other Video Streaming Services with WMC
If you re using Windows 7 Media Center as your HTPC then you ll definitely want to integrate it with other streaming services like Hulu or Boxee.
Integrate Boxee with Windows 7 Media Center
Integrate Hulu Desktop with Windows 7 Media Center
Record Edit TV
One of the cooler things that Media Center allows is the ability to use your PC like a DVR and record live TV. While it s really just a simple process of hitting a record button, you can also setup a schedule to record live broadcasts and use Windows Live Movie Maker to edit your TV recordings.
There are also advanced tools like Remote Potato that will allow you to remotely schedule and stream recorded TV.
Remove Commercials
While the native controls work fairly well for watching Live TV you ll probably want the ability to Skip Commercials. You can also try out some other plugins that give you more control like converting video and removing commercials with MCEBuddy.
Another way to help deal with commercials is using a simple registry hack to increase the skip and replay intervals of live and recorded TV.
Watching Movies in WMC
Since Media Center can be your central hub for entertainment, you might want to manage your movies through it. If you have a collection of movies ripped to AVI, MPEG, or other compatible formats you can easily add the folders to the Movie Library.
Here is a list of the file formats Windows 7 Media Center supports by default.
If you already have DVDs ripped to your hard drive to ISO format, you can automatically mount and view ISO files in WMC.
While the above solutions will allow you to easily watch your movie collection in WMC, you ll probably want to add images and metadata to the movies in your library.
If you want a more in depth approach for getting cover art and detailed metadata to your movie collection you can use the Media Center Master app. This will give you more detailed information on your movies from IMDB Internet Movie Database which is always a cool thing.
Listening to Music
They call it Media Center for a reason – it s not just limited to movies and TV. Most people don t think of using WMC for managing their music collection, but if you want to keep your multimedia in a central location, you can start by ripping your CD collection.
Then you can organize the Music Library by creating Playlists.
Listen to Local an Online Radio Broadcasts
If you re a person who still loves their radio, you can use WMC to listen to both local and online streaming broadcasts. If you have a supported tuner card and a connected FM antenna, you can listen to local FM radio even create station presets.
Or if you want to listen to streaming radio check out how to add an XM Radio account, or you can listen to over 100,000 radio stations from around the world for free with the RadioTime plugin.
Manage Pictures
If you have a lot of pictures in your collection, you can use the WMC Picture Library to help manage and display them. It provides the ability to create a slideshow of you pictures so you can easily share them with friends and family.
For even more control of your pictures you can use WMC to crop, edit, and print photos.
Customizing Windows 7 Media Center
Now that you know how to use WMC for music, movies, pictures, and TV you might want to take a look at customizing it. One thing you can do is add background images and themes for a more pleasant UI.
After adding backgrounds and themes to the user interface of WMC, you can customize the start menu using Media Center Studio.
To further customize the Start Menu, you can get rid of clutter by hiding menu strips that you don t ever use.
Use Your Phone as a Remote for Windows 7 Media Center
If you don t have a remote for your tuner card, a cool thing you can do is use your Android phone as a remote for it with GMote.
If you don t have an Android phone, you can also use your iPhone or iPod Touch as a remote too. Not only can you control WMC with these phone apps, but also your entire PC.
Enhance WMC with Addins
There are a lot of addins that are available for Windows 7 Media Center that you can use to enhance its functionality. Here s a look at some of the ones we ve covered.
Other Windows 7 Media Center Tips Tricks
If you have kids who have access to Media Center you might want to set up the Parental Controls feature. This allows you to block content you don t want your young ones to see. You choose the content they can or can t watch or listen to. If they try to access inappropriate media, they will have to enter in a code that only you know.
If you spend too much time watching TV and Movies, you might forget to do important tasks. If you tend to get caught up in a movie and forget things you need to get done, you can setup event reminders that will pop up while watching shows.
If you re annoyed when Media Center decides to grab updates for program listings while you re trying to get things done, you can schedule the updates to take place at specific times.
If you re a Windows Home Server user, there is a cool ability to setup the Windows Media Center Connector with it. This will allow you to access media content from the server and keep tabs on it s storage, health, backups, and more.
Media Center in Windows 7 has received several enhancements since the days of XP Media Center Edition. There are a lot of ways to use it including installing other addins and using it with your Xbox which we didn t cover here. If you re just starting out with WMC or are an experienced user, this guide should definitely help you out.
What about you. Do you use Windows 7 Media Center. Leave us a comment and tell us your favorite ways to use it.
How to Get Windows Media Player WMP 12 Taskbar Toolbar Taskband Back in Windows 7 and Later. NOTE: This tutorial will also work in Windows 8 and Windows.
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Getting Started Watching TV. If you are new to Windows 7 Media Center, you ll want to take a look at our beginner s guide which shows you how to set up WMC for.
NOTE: This tutorial will also work in Windows 8 and Windows 8.1.
We know Windows 7 comes with Windows Media Player 12 version which contains lots of new features and also the interface is a bit different from previous versions. But it doesn t provide taskbar toolbar aka mini toolbar which was one of the best thing in previous versions of Windows Media Player. Taskbar toolbar in WMP allows you to access the media player right from the Taskbar. You can minimize WMP window and can access it using the mini-toolbar which is displayed in Taskbar.
If you are also using Windows 7 and missing the good old Taskbar Toolbar aka Taskband in Windows Media Player 12 WMP 12, here is something very interesting for you.
Today in this article, we are going to share a small and easy to use trick which will help you in bringing back the taskbar toolbar in WMP 12 as shown in following screenshot:
Here are the step-by-step instructions to enable WMP 12 Taskbar Toolbar in Windows 7:
1. Actually Taskbar Toolbar or Taskband is stored in a DLL file called wmpband.dll which is found in Windows Media Player directory present in Program Files folder. Microsoft removed this DLL file from WMP 12 folder, that s why the toolbar no longer exists in Windows 7.
You can copy this DLL file from WMP 11 folder present in Windows Vista to Windows 7. If you don t have access to a Vista system, you can directly download it from following link:
Download Link
2. Once you download the above ZIP file, extract it and you ll get the required DLL file for both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows versions.
For 32-bit x86 users:
Copy the wmpband.dll file present in 32-bit or x86 folder and paste it to Windows Media Player directory present in Program Files folder. Just type programfiles Windows Media Player in Explorer addressbar and press enter and it ll open the Windows Media Player directory.
For 64-bit x64 users:
Copy the wmpband.dll file present in 64-bit or x64 folder and paste it to Windows Media Player directory present in Program Files folder. Just type programfiles Windows Media Player in Explorer addressbar and press enter and it ll open the Windows Media Player directory. You ll also need to copy the same DLL file to programfiles x86 Windows Media Player folder.
3. Now right-click on Computer icon on desktop and select Manage, it ll open a new window. Now go to Services Applications - Services. You can also open the same from Administrative Tools - Computer Management. Or you can directly open Services list by providing services.msc command in RUN or Start Menu search box.
Now right-click on Windows Media Player Network Sharing service and select Stop. It ll stop the service.
4. Now you ll need to register WMPBand.dll file.
First open Command Prompt as administrator using the steps given here. Now type following commands one by one and press Enter:
regsvr32 programfiles Windows Media Player wmpband.dll
regsvr32 programfiles x86 Windows Media Player wmpband.dll
5. That s it. Now run Windows Media Player and minimize it. Now right-click on Taskbar and select Toolbars - Windows Media Player option and ready to enjoy the Taskbar Toolbar aka Taskband in Windows 7.
Thanks to Justin Buser WinMatrix for sharing it
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Posted in: Troubleshooting, Windows 7
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