Posts Tagged: registry

0Enable access to the c$ share on Windows 7 and newer

Posted by & filed under Windows.

I have a range of HTPCs run­ning win­dows around the house, which I largely admin­is­ter via remote desktop. Occa­sion­ally it is use­ful to access the root of the C drive remotely. Win­dows has always catered for this by cre­at­ing some default admin­is­trat­ive shares, which are hid­den. The C drive is accessed via \\remote-pc\c$ for example. In win­dows 7 I found I was­n’t able to access these shares by default as they have been restric­ted (under­stand­ably). I needed a way to make them access­ible again.
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0Group Policy LogoCustom ADM file for Windows Server 2003 / XP domain

Published by & filed under Misc Software. Last updated .

I was dig­ging thru an old back-up CD today and stumbled upon a cus­tom ADM file I cre­ated when I was admin­is­ter­ing a Win­dows Serv­er 2003 / Win­dows XP Domain. To use, copy the fol­low­ing code into note­pad, save the file with a .adm exten­sion on the system32 folder of a domain serv­er. Open Group Policy edit­or and add the file, then browse to the “Tech­ni­cians Set­tings” to enable any of the settings.
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0PC Hardware CPU RAM UpgradeSimple ways to make your PC much faster

Published by & filed under Misc Software. Last updated .

There are lots of tips and advice out there on the inter­net about how to tweak the per­form­ance of your PC. Some of them have some use­ful tips, but the vast major­ity are of very little use, either because they are for the wrong oper­at­ing sys­tem, or they don’t apply to your setup, or because they’re just plain wrong. When someone brings a PC to me and says its too slow, before I advise them to upgrade it (and that is always an option) I have a quick look for sev­er­al things that are the lead­ing cause of slow PC per­form­ance. Over 90% of the time car­ry­ing out the vari­ous steps detailed below res­ults in a sub­stan­tial improve­ment and a happy PC user.
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2Windows Media Center eHome LogoFull 7MC codec setup

Published by & filed under Codecs, Misc Media Software, Windows Media Center. Last updated .

I’ve pre­vi­ously pos­ted sev­er­al times about codec issues on 7mc, but I’ve now got a solu­tion that is com­pre­hens­ive, fairly simple and works con­sist­ently. With a few free codecs and util­it­ies you can have full decod­ing sup­port, DXVA, sub­titles and fant­ast­ic flex­ib­il­ity work­ing in 64bit (or 32bit) Media Cen­ter. The fol­low­ing instruc­tions are spe­cif­ic to the x64 edi­tion, but should work just as well on the 32bit edition.
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0Haali Matroska logoProblems with DS splitters playing a range of m2ts files

Published by & filed under Codecs. Last updated .

Ever since set­tings up a HTPC run­ning Win7 Media Cen­ter I have had the occa­sion­al prob­lem play­ing m2ts files. ffd­show sup­ports all of the codecs used in m2ts files but still a few files play without without either audio or video, or the play­back isn’t smooth des­pite more than ample hard­ware. I have exper­i­mented extens­ively with both haali matroska split­ter and [int­link id=“58” type=“post”]gabests mpeg splitter[/intlink] but both have their flaws.
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1Closed Captions Subtitles LogoSubtitles and DXVA in Windows Media Center 7 x64

Published by & filed under Codecs. Last updated .

Thanks to a guide on theHTPC.net I have been able to get sub­titles work­ing with hard­ware accel­er­ated decod­ing in Win­dows Media Cen­ter 7 x64.

For this sim­pli­fied guide to work you must already be com­fort­able with the vari­ous tweaks neces­sary to change the default codecs used in Media Cen­ter. Once you know how to tweak codecs (and change their mer­its) you can simply fol­low these steps…
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0FFmpeg LogoMedia center basic codec tweaks

Published by & filed under Codecs, Windows Media Center. Last updated .

Fol­low­ing on from my [int­link id=“49” type=“post”]previous post list­ing details of the addins and apps[/intlink] that I use with my media cen­ter PC here are the details of the basic set of codec tweaks I use to enable max­im­um file com­pat­ib­lity with DXVA sup­port enabled…
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