Clearing Guide Data and Tuner Setup from Windows 7 Media Center
by Michael Healy @ 9:15 am on September 1st, 2009 in tv listings with 27 Comments
There may come a time when you need to completely erase the history of your downloaded guide data and tuner setup. Something may have gone wrong with your setup, tuners may have changed or maybe you’re just looking to clean house a little. Don’t worry, this isn’t going to require a complete reinstall of Windows 7, the process is in fact quite easy. Windows 7 Media Center stores all the information we need to clear inside database files stored inside the ProgramData folder. However, we’ll need to close a few background services before we’re able to clear the files from the drive.
To get started open up Task Manager. You can either enter “task manager” under the start menu and select the first listing to “View running processes with Task Manager” or use the old standby of pressing ctrl-alt-delete and selecting Task Manager. Once inside the Task Manager select the Services tab and press the Services button.
Now locate the Services associated with Windows 7 Media Center then right click each one and select the option to Stop the service. You can also select the service then press the Stop link on the left hand side of the Services pane.
Once you’ve stopped both Media Center services return to the Task Manager window and open up the Processes tab. Here you’ll want to press the button to Show processes from all users. There are a number of processes that may or may not be running that will prevent you from deleting the guide database. Locate any running processes marked as part of the Media Center process such as the Receiver and Scheduler service as well as the In-band Guide Loader. Each of these processes will need to be terminated by pressing the End Process button before we can delete the existing database.
Now that we’re certain that no remaining Media Center processes are locking down access to the database we can finally open up Windows Explorer and locate the files we need to clear. Inside Windows Explorer navigate to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\ehome.
Inside the ehome folder you’ll see a .db file as well as a folder marked mcepgX-X-X, these are the files that need to be cleared in order to reset our TV setup and guide data from Media Center. Now that the Media Center processes have been stopped you should be able to delete the .db file as well as the folder and it’s contents to reset your TV setup to it’s original state.
After deleting the files we’ll want to restart the machine to ensure that all of the appropriate Media Center services are restarted. Afterward, open Media Center and enter the Setup Live TV option from the TV start menu.
That’s all there is to it! Windows 7 Media Center has been restored to the original Live TV guide settings and you can start fresh. Be sure to bookmark Hack7MC as well to find all the tips and information you need for your Windows 7 Media Center!
