Hacking Windows 7 Media Center » themes

Media Center Studio Installation

Michael Healy — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 15:59:50 +0000

As many have likely noticed the Media Center Studio site has been down for quite some time and doesn’t look likely to make a reappearance. Due to the web-based application installation procedure used by MCS this puts us in a particularly hard position as there isn’t a simple installer to redistribute. A few guys (Josh3693, JoshFink and Assassin) at the AVS forums have set forth to provide us with a solution to the problem. It’s actually relatively simple but will still require you to go digging around in hidden folders so not for the absolute novice.

First you’ll need a copy of the files which are mirrored here to spare Assassin the bandwidth but don’t hesitate to visit his blog here. The installation instructions follow:

Assassin’s Instruction for Media Center Studio work around…
1. Download the zipped folder directory “Assassin’s MCS Directory”
2. Unzip the file
3. Make sure you have “show hidden folders” enabled under the folders option in your Start -> Control Panel menu.
4. Move the unzipped directory to C:\users\*your_user_name*\Appdata\local\Apps\2.0\*huge_string_of_junk*\ where “*huge_string_of_junk*” is the name of the directory that you just unzipped and pasted into that folder.
5. Then run the executable : Media Center Studio.exe

A text copy is also available here.

That should be all there is to getting Media Center Studio running as long as the official site stays dark. Should anyone have contact with the owner of adventmediacenter.com we’d love to see the site come back or would gladly host the files here at Hack7MC to make them available to the community.

It may also be worth note at this time that there is another media center theme application available here at Patchou’s Cabana. There aren’t very many themes available for the program currently however, though that may change with the outage of the official Media Center Studio site. Hopefully Assassin’s method to installation eases that pain for now.

HexBlueGlow and Black (and Red) Theme Available for Download

Michael Healy — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 12:56:35 +0000

Today we’re back online and ready to give you a couple of new themes to download. Apologies for the recent downtime, the server seems to always know just when I’m leaving town for extended periods of time. I’ve put top men on it and hopefully we can get the problem fixed soon.

To brighten things up you can find a few new themes for download and installation on your Windows 7 Media Center machine. The first is from Astrotoy7 with a follow-up to his original Black theme. The theme has been updated to feature a red theater drape in the main background and still includes fully black themed bits in other areas of Media Center.

Download Black (and Red) Theme

If red doesn’t fit your style you can try blue with this new HexGlowBlue theme from Grayline23. What makes this theme so fantastic? The background is animated to slowly strobe a glowing blue effect! It really is quite a neat effect and is one of the first backgrounds to be animated with anything other than the original style of blue glowing mist from the original Media Center theme.

Download HexBlueGlow Theme

That’s all for today, hopefully this server issue gets fixed promptly and everything is smooth sailing from here on. Find instructions for installing these themes below.

Installing this theme requires Windows 7 Media Center and Media Center Studio, a free media center theme creation application. Once you’ve downloaded the zip file extract the .mct file inside to a location of your choice. Open Media Center Studio and select the themes tab then select Import Theme. Locate the file and import the theme into the program. Select the newly imported theme from the listing and hit Apply. The theme will be applied the next time media center is started.

New ‘Mobius’ Theme Now Available

Michael Healy — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 15:18:39 +0000

Welcome! Today we’ve got another theme available for download. This theme, derived from the original wallpaper available here, is another piece from the venerable collection of wallpapers at perfecthue.com. For those who have yet to check out previous entries from this collection be sure to pick up the Crowd and Platform themes as well. These works are thanks to the fantastic work and generosity of Jason Benjamin, who has allowed for the conversion of these wallpapers into Media Center themes. So be sure to head over, pickup the original background (using it as your Media Center’s background makes for a smoother transition on bootup and shutdown) and thank him for his hard work in making these excellent creations.

DOWNLOAD MOBIUS THEME

Be sure to check back for more additions to the collection as well as other media center add-ons and software.

New ‘Crowd’ Media Center Theme

Michael Healy — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 17:00:22 +0000

Hello again, today I’ve got another theme that I was keen to transfer over to a Media Center theme from perfecthue.com. This particular one is based on the wallpaper ‘Crowd’ which can be downloaded as a matching background from the artist, Jason Benjamin, right here. Once again I’d really like to thank him for allowing the use of his work for these themes, there are some really fantastic wallpapers he’s made available and everyone should head over and check out his work at perfecthue.com.

So, without further ado, here’s the ‘Crowd’ theme available for download and use with Media Center Studio. Further directions will be cut and pasted below, installation is standard as with any other theme.

DOWNLOAD ‘CROWD’ THEME

Enjoy! Look out for some non-theme updates soon as I try out some of this updated software that has come out.

New ‘Platform’ Media Center Theme

Michael Healy — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 19:29:50 +0000

Greetings internet denizens and media center fans! I realize it’s been quite some time since the last update but today there’s a new media center theme available for download. Thanks to Jason Benjamin of perfecthue.com for allowing the conversion of his work over into Windows 7 Media Center themes. This particular theme is based on the Platform wallpaper available on his site. Hopefully this means I’ll have more themes available in the near future as well but for now, enjoy!

DOWNLOAD PLATFORM THEME

Again, don’t forget to head over to perfecthue.com and check out more wallpapers from the same artist and grab a few for your desktop. Also, thanks again to Jason for allowing the use of his fine workmanship!

Streaming Light Theme

Michael Healy — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 13:00:00 +0000

Thanks to Dave Bryce, a Hack7MC reader and AVForums member, we have a new theme available for download today. Dave sent us this theme via mhealy@hack7mc.com and you can send your themes in as well if you’ve got them! Just attach the MCT file from Media Center Studio and we’ll post it here for our users to enjoy.

Dave’s theme, Streaming Light is currently being worked on and has an active thread available for comments over at AVForums. Be sure to drop in and leave comments, suggestions and praise in the thread. We’ve got the latest version, 1.02, available for download right here in our Download Center. You’ll need Media Center Studio installed in order to apply the theme.

For those unfamiliar with Media Center Studio simply run the program and select the Themes tab. From that tab select the Import Theme button and select the Streaming Light MCT file to add it to Media Center Studio’s theme listing. From there select the Streaming Light theme and press the Apply button. The theme will be applied to Media Center and should appear the next time you launch the program.

Easy as that! Thanks to Dave Bryce for sending in this theme and everyone else who does the same. Be sure to share your creations with the world, just send us your MCT files to mhealy@hack7mc.com or give us a link to your custom theme.

Pair of Themes and an MC Studio Fix

Michael Healy — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 13:30:00 +0000

In case you hadn’t noticed previously we’ve added a pair of new Media Center themes to our Download Center. Future themes and updates will appear in the Download Center section and users can email their themes as attachments to mhealy@hack7mc.com to have them added to the section. This new pair of themes comes from a Hack7MC reader, Steve Firestone (thewarm). Both themes are created to be used with Media Center Studio and since this program has been having issues lately adjusting the start menu items we’ve included a fix for this as well at the end. Hopefully we’ll see further updates to the MC Studio program soon.

The first of the themes, called Black Desert, features a black background with 3D style blocks as well as a handful of custom start menu icons. To use the theme using will need to have Media Center Studio. Import the theme file from the Themes tab and you’ll see a new selection available on the main themes window. Select the new theme and press the Apply button under the Themes tab. That should be all there is to changing your Media Center theme.

The second theme, also from Steve, is called A Touch of Red. This theme is a variation of the original with a slightly varied layout of the blocks and a slight touch of red on the forward side.

Both themes are a sleek addition to any budding Media Center theme collection and are very usable inside the Media Center interface. Users may have noticed that a recent update to the Media Center software has left certain features of the Media Center Studio program not working. The update seems to have added what actually appears it may be a simpler replacement for editing the start menu items, though it’s not currently supported by the Media Center Studio software.

For now there are a few temporary fixes around though to get your start menu back the way you like it. The simplest solution is a handy tool created by Tyborg of The Green Button forums. Simply download the zip file, extract to somewhere accessible and run the program. This will make the changes (described in more detail later) necessary to allow MC Studio editing of the start menu possible once more. In order to keep these changes through future updates the author advises us to add the file to our startup folders or schedule the program to run regularly. Find even more details or follow the discussion here at TGB forums.

What the program does is to rename a couple of files created in a recent update to Media Center. If you’ve got an aversion to handy tools or it doesn’t seem to work for you try the following. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\eHome\Packages\MCEClientUX. Inside you’ll find two folders: dSM and dSM-2 with files inside each. To revert to the old method rename the files in these folders. Users have reported more permanent success by created a set of text files with the names of the originals and removing all access to the files.

That should have Media Center Studio’s start menu functions operating again. Be sure to try out those two new themes and read a few more Media Center Studio guides here at Hack7MC.

Enabling Per Section Backgrounds in Media Center

Michael Healy — Thu, 27 May 2010 15:00:00 +0000

There are a number of other media center solutions that provide the ability to have a different background for each area of media. Movies, Music and TV all come with various different backgrounds to represent their different content. Now, thanks to bill24 of the Australian Media Center Community, Windows 7 Media Center users can as well. The end result is well worth the work for those interested in the hack though as bill24 mentions this is very much a hack. As such it’s susceptible to interference from other programs or plugins as well as being erased by a Windows Update. The changes are unlikely to cause any major problems though you should always make backups, especially when editing important system files.

For those comfortable with some minor system file manipulation bill24 lays out the steps to use the popular Restorator, which has a free trial, to change a few lines to enable the extra backgrounds. The first thing you’ll need to do is take ownership (Download, Apply, rclick ehres.dll and Take Ownership) of the ehres.dll file in C:\Windows\ehome. Next make two copies of the file one as a backup and another to edit. Once that’s done open up the file in Restorator.

First navigate to the html folder and locate the EXTENSIBILITY.BACKGROUND.XML, make a copy of this file on the desktop and rename it to RECORDEDTV.BACKGROUND.XML. Next open this new file for editing in any text editor (I personally prefer Notepad++) and find the following:

background=”image(Common.Background.png)”

into

background=”image(BD.RECORDEDTV.PNG)”

Now copy that file back into Restorator inside of the html folder and locate the RECORDEDTV.BROWSEPAGE.XML and edit it either inside Restorator or in a text editor. Change the following line:

into

This will instruct the program to load a custom image for Recorded TV’s background image. Each of these steps will have to be repeated, replacing the section name for RECOREDEDTV above. Then an image will need to be added for each background referenced in place of the Common.Backgound.png. These images should be dropped into the RCData folder inside Restorator. The following sections are known to be available: VIDEO, RECORDEDTV, PICTURES, MUSIC, RADIO and MOVIES.

Though there is a patch to make this slightly simpler it still requires use of Restorator. You’ll need to apply the patch to an editable version of ehres.dll and then replace the background images named:

BD.VIDEO.png
BD.RECOREDTV.png
BD.PICTURES.png
BD.MUSIC.png
BD.RADIO.png
BD.MOVIES.PNG

Users will simply need to drag and drop the image to replace the new black “replace me” background added by the patch. Then save the new dll file and copy it over the original in C:\Windows\ehome. Though still not particularly for novices this does make the process quite a bit easier. Even if trying your hand at the manual method didn’t work this may give better results when used on that backup file.

A great big thanks to bill24 for coming up with the work to make this possible and Australian Media Center Forums for the community to bring around these great people. Be sure to become a subscribing member of Hack7MC to catch all the latest posts, it’s free!

Media Center Theme Pack and Brokeh Theme Updates

Michael Healy — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 17:00:00 +0000

Today we’ve got a special surprise set of downloads available. First, the popular Brokeh theme has been updated with a modified background to make reading text on the screen slightly easier. The theme has also been converted into a Media Center Studio theme package. This should make it much easier to install for everyone. Finally, we’ve got four additional themes that have been converted to MC Studio packages. Additionally, Theme7MC.com will be redirecting to this page for a short period while the site is folded into Hack7MC official.

Update: Find more themes and the original Theme7MC archives right here!

You can find download links for the five themes in the first pack available below. Download them individually by selecting them below or download the entire pack by selecting the package link.

To install the themes download them to your local Media Center machine. If downloading the entire pack extract them to the hard drive. Next, be sure to have a copy of Media Center Studio installed. Under the Themes menu tab select the Import Theme button and select the theme file to import.

Once imported into Media Center Studio select the theme from the Themes tab below and press the Apply button.

Hopefully this makes it much easier to distribute themes to users and eliminates much of the complications of the old way of applying the themes. If you’d like more information on making your own Media Center themes start here or check out our recent article on changing your media center background. Thanks for trying out our themes and be sure to leave any comments below.

Changing Media Center’s Background with Media Center Studio

Michael Healy — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 13:30:00 +0000

Let’s face it, after a while Windows 7 Media Center’s background image can become rather dull. Luckily, sprucing it up isn’t exactly rocket science. We can use Media Center Studio to quickly and easily change the default background to one of our choosing. All we need is Media Center Studio and a high resolution image from someplace like interfacelift.com. Make sure to choose an image with a minimum resolution that matches the highest resolution of your monitor. Enlarging images leaves artifacts and pixelation and we don’t want that, especially on the big screen. Another good tip is to pick one with some blue in it as the rest of the Media Center elements are blue.

Now that we’ve got our background we need Media Center Studio. Download and install the program from the author’s site then, make certain Windows 7 Media Center is closed, and launch the program. From the start menu the program can be found under Start –> Programs –> Advent –> Media Center Studio. To get started changing things about in Media Center create a new theme by pressing the New button in the Home ribbon.

Now to change the background we need to expand the Images –> Common –> Background. The images we’re interested in changing at this point are COMMON.ANIMATED.BACKGROUND.PNG and COMMON.BACKGROUND.PNG. Change the images to your newly downloaded background image by pressing the browse button above the original displayed on the right.

You may notice that the images appear extremely small in Media Center Studio for some reason but this doesn’t seem to effect the output. After changing both images save the theme with the Save button at the top then return to the Themes tab at the top and bottom.

Select the newest theme at the bottom, which will be marked with today’s date and time, then press the Apply button at the top under the Themes tab. Then just launch Windows 7 Media Center and everything should be all set, easy.

That’s all there is to it. Much easier than the last time we wrote a guide on changing the background in Windows 7 Media Center. For those looking to get rid of the animated blue images replace the rest of those images listed under background with a transparent png image (right-click -> save as).

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