To get started we’ll need the original icon. Now we have the original Movie Library icon extracted here for you but if you need any of the other default icons you’ll need to extract them yourself from the ehres.dll file using Restorator. Just open the C:\Windows\ehome\ehres.dll in Restorator and browse to RCData. Locate the series of files named StartMenu.Quicklink. and extract them using drag and drop or the right-click menu.

Now that we’ve got the image that we want to use to replace the plugin’s icon let’s open up regedit (start –> search “regedit”). Browse to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Extensibility\Entry Points” and look through the keys (represented by folders in the left pane) until you locate the one which contains the appropriate data inside. The title or Add-In values should give you an idea of whether or not you’ve got the right key. Each plugin will have it’s own set of keys as long as it has got an entry point somewhere in Media Center.

Now on the right hand side locate the entries labeled ImageURL and InactiveImageURL. These are the two values we need to change in order to change the images used inside Media Center. Be sure that the images you will be using are saved to a permanent location then double click each entry and enter the location of the replacement image. ImageURL will be the colored image for when the item is selected and InactiveImageURL will be the white image for when the item is not selected.

Now for the magic, open up Media Center Studio and the Start Menu tab. Expand the Entry Point tab and locate the icon for the plugin we’ll be using to replace the default, in this case Media Browser. The icon should appear with the one entered in through regedit, the default Movie Library icon. Drag the icon to just before the default Movie Library icon and check the box to disable the built-in icon. Of course, you can also rename the Media Browser icon to Movie Library for a seem-less change-over as well by clicking on the name.

Then just save your settings and re-launch Windows Media Center to see the changes take effect. You should see Media Browser in place of the default Movie Library, with the default icon. It may take some fidgeting in Media Center Studio to get the image to be the first selected when moving to the start strip, however. Be certain to place it just before the default movie library icon and it should work (but doesn’t always seem to).

There you have it! Media Browser in the main start menu looking like it was meant to be there all along. You should be able to follow the same general steps to get the same effect for just about any plugin. For those looking to change all the default Windows 7 Media Center icons check out the Themes tab inside Media Center Studio, create a new theme and browse to the Images –> Start Menu section.

Luckily we can take our favorite movie plugin, Media Center studio and a simple plugin from Mikinhosoft we can recreate the original movie strip experience while using our custom movie plugins. To get start you’ll need to download and install your favorite Windows 7 Media Center movie plugin, Media Center Studio and the extra Mikinhosoft plugin to add some of the default functions to our new strip.

Once installed open up Media Center Studio and select the start menu tab to begin editing our start menu strips and tiles. You’ll also need to enable the start menu toolbar to allow us to add and edit new start menu strips.

Next press the Insert Menu Strip button and a new strip with the title Custom Strip will be added to the end of the menu strip listing just above the auto play handlers. Start by renaming your new strip, probably to something like “Movies” since we’ll be replacing the original “Movies” strip. Then, using the arrows to the left and right of the menu strip title rearrange the strip and place it just below the original movie strip.

Begin adding tiles to your new start menu strip by expanding the Entry points menu at the bottom of the Media Center Studio window. From here you can add any entry points available, with the exception of the default tiles. Some of the default tiles can be dragged from their original place on the native movie strip onto our new strip. Others, such as the copy disk tile may need to be added from the Entry points listings under the Mikinhosoft plugin. Don’t forget to add a tile linking to your favorite movie plugin to replace that default movie library as well.

Once you’ve finished dragging new tiles onto your custom start menu strip, disable the default strip by unchecking the box next to the title of the original strip. Then be sure to save your changes as well (Media Center must not be running to save these changes). Finally, relaunch Windows 7 Media Center and check out your new customized Media Center Movies start menu strip.

That’s all there is to it! This isn’t limited to movie strips either, build custom strips for your music, video and games and launch them all directly from the Windows 7 Media Center start menu.

For now we’ll need to download the new plugin from Mikinhosoft on the Green Button Forums and use the WMC Configuration Wizard. For those looking to remove the default strips as well be sure to check out the Hide Strips program guide as well. Now we’ve got all the tools we need to create our custom start menu strips and remove the old ones.

Once you’ve got all the components installed run the WMC Configuration Wizard and we’ll create a custom start strip for Movies using Open Media Library that includes the default Play DVD tile as well.

Start by creating your new start menu strip and giving it a name and title. In the next section you’ll be given a listing of all your installed plugins and entry points. Here you should now find a listing of all the default tiles available thanks to the new Mikinhosoft plugin. Each one will appear as an ehres.dll entry with the name of the tile on the right.

For our new strip we’ve selected Open Media Library and the Play DVD tile. On the next screen we can order the tiles to appear with OML first and Play DVD second, just like the default Movies strip.

Then if you’ve got other custom strips installed you can set the order in which they appear in your start menu lineup then finish the wizard and your new start menu strip will be created. Simple as pie! Next we’ll use Hide Strips to hide the default Movie Strip and we’ll be all set.

This step is so simple it boggles the mind. Mikinhosoft has created a Hide Strips program that allows us to simply deselect the default Movie Strip and save our settings.

Be sure to check out our full guide on the Hide Strips program to get the download as well as a more detailed guide on using the program should you need it. As you can see the Hide Strips download now includes an Add and Edit button though they are currently not functional. This is likely because we’ll soon be seeing a new program that includes a complete solution to adding, removing and editing start menu strips as well as creating custom tiles for any program on your system.

Be sure to subscribe to Hack7MC and we’ll let you know as soon as this exciting new program becomes available for use!

That’s all there is to it! You can now create custom start strips that include the default Media Center tiles to your heart’s content. If you have any problems or issues be sure to drop a note in the Green Button forums or in the comments below.

To get started you’ll need to register with the Vista4Cast forum to be able to login and view the download thread. Once registered and logged in you’ll find a forum for both 32 and 64-bit version of the program. Download and install the proper version for your system. For those looking for both the three day forecast and the extended forecast you’ll need to install both Vista4Cast and the Extended4Cast plugin.

Once installed configure your location and other settings by right-clicking the Vista4Cast icon located in your system tray or by launching the configuration from the programs menu.

Once inside search for your city by entering the name or zip code in the City input box. You’ll get a list of possible results on the right that you can add to the locations box by selecting the arrow to move the selected city to your locations. Under the setup section you’ll find options to customize the look of the weather forecast including the ability to show up to five days. Selecting the Image Builder button provides a large number of additional options as well.

Inside the image builder options you can set the temperature measurement settings, what information is displayed and even change the font and colors. The options provide you with the ability to customize the output to the extreme. Selecting from an option on the right of the image preview will even allow you to move the position of each item. Checking the Change Temp Colour option will even allow you to set custom colors depending on the temperature forecasted.

Once finished select the Run Now option from the system tray icon to generate the image. Next launch Media Center and check out your settings.

You’ll see the short forecast in the OEM logo section of the Windows 7 Media Center start menu. If you’ve installed the additional Extended4Cast plugin you can launch it from the Extra Programs menu by default and have an extremely detailed view of the weather forecasted for the next week.

That’s all there is to it! Don’t let the name fool you this Media Center plugin works great in Windows 7 and provides more weather features than any one could even wish for. Well, we’d still love to see a radar image option and maybe some emergency weather integration. That aside, Vista4Cast is an excellent plugin definitely worth checking out for anyone looking to add weather features to their Windows 7 Media Center.

Using this handy new tool is simple, just download the zip file, extract it to your hard disk and run. The wizard will take you step by step through the process of creating new start menu strips. Select Create New Start Menu Strip and give your new strip a name and a title which will appear in the start menu.

On the next screen choose the programs you’d like to appear in your new custom start strip by holding down ctrl and selecting the programs from a list of all the programs available on your system.

After choosing your programs the next screens will allow you to arrange the order of programs in your new start strip as well as the order of your new strip in the start menu. All new non-default strips will appear under the Extras strip and can’t be moved below the other default strips.

That’s all there is to it! Just rinse and repeat to add multiple strips to your Windows 7 Media Center. The wizard also provides the ability to remove custom start strips by selecting Delete existing start menu strip and choosing the strip you’d like to remove.

If you’re interested in removing the default start menu strips check out the Mikinhosoft app from this article. It really doesn’t get much simpler than this, hopefully we’ll see more useful programs like these come along in the near future as Windows 7 is finally released.

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.

Though there are still a number of outstanding bugs here’s a short list of the issues addressed in version 2.1.1 according to the announcement:

• Fixed missing actor images
• Some fixes to improve poster view / cover flow performance. Note: It is still not super fast on Vanilla and Diamond, but its better.
• (The only new feature) Jas added an awesome new feature which give you pagination for newest items in the enhanced home screen
• Fixed crash in EHS which could be triggered when a movie existed in your root folder
• Configurator load time was improved
• Made code backwards compatible with .Net 3.5 (RC)
• Fixed display of view config menu
• Display play all/random properly in coverflow diamond
• Diamond movie page: Fixed display option wandering, tweaked poster, added local trailer support

This update is now available through the Google Code download site and will be marked as a automatic beta update in a few days time.

Also available for download today, an update to the Media Browser Start Strip Extras. This package of extras lets users place extra programs on the new Media Browser start strip. Included in this updated package is the registry fix to remove the default Movie start strip so there’s no need for the original start strip modification any longer.

Currently available in easy to consume registry files, just double-click and apply to the registry, are the following Media Center plugins:

• Media Control
• Music Browser
• Media Center Mail
• PlayIt
• PowerDVD9
• SecondRun.tv
• TotalMedia Theatre 3
• TubeCore
• TunerFreeMCE
• TwitterMCE
• My Trailers for MCE
• Turn Off Default Movie Strip
• Rename Media Browser Strip (Edit .reg file)

To install just download the package and unzip to your hard drive. Run any registry file and follow the on-screen prompts to make the changes to your registry. Then simply relaunch Media Center for the changes to take effect.

If there are any other applications you’d like to see added to the package leave a comment below along with the website where the plugin can be found. Comments with website links in them may be caught for moderation, don’t worry we got it and there’s no need to resubmit.

Here’s a quick run down of the plug-ins with registry files included in this pack:

• Media Control
• Music Browser
• PlayIt
• PowerDVD9
• SecondRun.tv
• TubeCore
• TunerFreeMCE
• TwitterMCE
• My Trailers for MCE

Also included is a small registry file which you can edit to change the name of the custom strip. Simply open Rename Custom Strip.reg and change the Title=”” line to the title of your choice. Then apply the registry modification.

Included for each plug-in is a registry file for enabling and disabling that plug-in on the custom menu strip. There is a limit of five items per strip however, so choose your favorites carefully. Though you can enable and disable strip items at any point using the registry files in the pack.

To get started just make sure you have the custom Media Browser strip installed and download the extras pack. Inside you’ll find a number of registry files. Just double-click and apply the modifications to enable or disable the plug-in named in the filename.

While it’s not quite as handy as having an application available to really customize your Media Center menus this should be able to tide you over somewhat. If there’s a plug-in you’d like to see added to the package leave a note below along with the entry point id if possible.

This certainly isn’t desirable if, for instance, you’d like to browse by genre then get a list of artists in that genre. Choosing to sort by a certain genre in the default music library simply gives you a list of all the albums marked with that genre.

Enter Music Browser with the ability to not only browse through your music library by folder but load up artwork for each artist, genre or any other folder method you’ve setup. Adding artwork to your folders is as simple as adding a folder.jpg file to that folder.

To get started with Music Browser download the latest version which supports installation on Windows 7. By default the program will install to the Extra Programs area of Media Center. If you’d like to add an icon to our custom Media Browser strip you can download the reg file to do that right here as well.

It’s not all butter and cream though. Inside the settings panel you’ll notice that you can’t add network shares to the plug-in by default. There’s a way around this though. Open up Windows Explorer and browse to “C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\MusicBrowser”. Inside you should find a couple of folders and a MusicBrowser.config file. Open it up in Notepad and change the following line to look like so:

<InitialFolder>C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\MusicBrowser\VirtualFolder.vf</InitialFolder>

Next create a new text file in the same folder called “VirtualFolder.vf” and for each network share add “folder: //SHAREDLOCATION” on it’s own line. For example, “folder: \\MEDIACENTER-PC\Storage\My Music”.

Aside from that small caveat using Music Browser was fairly straightforward. Music Browser also sports three different view-types, list, folder and poster. Each one displaying artwork and folder names differently. All views incorporate the artwork however which is a definite plus over the native music library.

If you don’t already have them adding folder images to each genre and artist can pose quite a time-sink but will surely be rewarding in the end for those who venture onward. For those looking for genre folder icons there is quite a sizable collection at The Genres Pool Flickr group.

Also, though the program doesn’t appear to currently be under development it is open source for anyone willing to pick-up the torch. Perhaps we can get a plug-in as customizable as the widely used Media Browser.

This handy little app gives you easy access to what menu strips are displayed through a couple of menus. The program supports both Vista and Windows 7, automatically detecting which version suites your current setup. To get started just download the program from Mikinhosoft and run the program, no installation is needed.

After running the program select the tab you’d like to edit the settings for. Per User allows you to set different start menu strips for each user on the current PC. You must be logged into the account you wish to edit with this tab. The All Users tab allows you to set start menu strip options across all users on the current PC. To use the All Users tab be sure to run the program as an Administrator.

This little app is certainly easier than doing all those registry edits on your own and doesn’t require patching of the system files to remove the Movies strip.

That’s really all there is to it. Unfortunately, at this point there’s still no easy way to add new strips to the Media Center start menu though. Hopefully, we’ll see something available soon!

Until then subscribe to Hack7MC using one of these free subscriptions to get up to date information on tweaking and hacking your Windows Media Center!