We’ve all seen the notices Media Center throws up from time to time asking us to disable applications that aren’t responding or are unable to start. What happens when we disable an application we didn’t mean to or maybe a family member does it without knowing quite what was going on. Let’s take a look at enabling and disabling Media Center Plugins and Extras as well as choosing which custom start strips to display on the start page.

As you can see the Invalid Application dialog that pops up from time to time doesn’t provide much information in the way of helping the average user decipher the problem. Pressing the Details button won’t provide much help for the layperson either.

Here you can see a basic details screen, which can be quite confusing for non-programmers not to mention family members. In fact all this text says nothing more than no internet connection is available and the application didn’t handle it gracefully.

So once an application has been disabled how do we get it back? Alternatively, what if we have an application that’s giving us problems but not presenting us with the option to disable it? Let’s take a look into the Start Menu and Extras options.

First, from the start page, navigate to the Tasks strip and select Settings.

From the next menu select the option to enter the Start Menu and Extras options.

From here you’ll find all the options to customize your Start Menu and Extras settings. You’ll notice there are settings for which start strips appear on your Start page under Start Menu, general options under Extras Library Options and finally under Extras Library you’ll find a listing of installed plugins and applications that you can enable or disable.

On this page, enabling and disabling Extras and plugins is as simple as checking or unchecking the box next to the application you wish to enable or disable then pressing the Save button on the left side of the window.

To change what programs show strips on your main Start Menu choose the Start Menu option from the Start Menu and Extras options. Then simply select or deselect strips depending on which you’d like to appear then Save your settings on the left.

That’s all there is to customizing your Extra Programs and Start Menu setup under Windows 7 Media Center! Be sure to check back to Hack7MC for even more guides to using your Media Center setup.