Deleting the ehome directory & DRM keys

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DSperber

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Deleting the ehome directory & DRM keys

#1

Post by DSperber » Tue Sep 27, 2016 3:20 pm

Jimmersd wrote:Also I am concerned that deleting the eHome directory will cause me to lose access to recordings.
Doesn't happen. The DRM key used for encryption of copy-protected program recordings is based on the installed Windows and your hardware configuration, mostly CPU, motherboard and memory details.

So as long as you don't reinstall Windows from scratch, or radically change your hardware setup (including NOT adding additional memory which you'd have thought would would be as benign a minor hardware upgrade as adding additional drive storage, but it's not and WILL in fact lose your DRM key and thus WILL lose access to your existing copy-protected WTV recordings) you won't lose access to your existing copy-protected recordings.

I can personally attest to having precisely followed the EPG123 install instructions from A-Z, including deleting the \ehome directory. I did NOT lose the ability to play any copy-protected recordings, even after stepping through the WMC setup completely from scratch as is required (so as to avoid accepting WMC's Guide agreement). You don't lose your cablecard pairing (which is a hardware thing involving your tuner card and the cableco head-end) which was done probably years ago and will remain in effect completely independently of any new software changes including a complete reinstall of Windows! So you won't need to re-pair your cablecard. And you don't lose your PlayReady/DRM key, which again is not based on the existence of the \ehome directory.

Just protect yourself properly against ANY SURPRISE: Before you start take a "system image" backup, ideally with a superb product like Macrium Reflect Free but doing this with any tool of your choice is what I'm urging. This will absolutely guarantee that no matter what unexpected event or problem issue might arise, you will be able to quickly and easily restore your system to exactly the 100% working environment state it had before you started and took step #1. Honestly, this probably won't be needed, but better safe than sorry. Macrium Reflect and "system image" backups are one of the greatest things invented by MS with Win7.

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#2

Post by WMCuser » Sat Oct 29, 2016 1:57 pm

DSperber wrote:
Jimmersd wrote:Also I am concerned that deleting the eHome directory will cause me to lose access to recordings.
Doesn't happen. The DRM key used for encryption of copy-protected program recordings is based on the installed Windows and your hardware configuration, mostly CPU, motherboard and memory details.

So as long as you don't reinstall Windows from scratch, or radically change your hardware setup (including NOT adding additional memory which you'd have thought would would be as benign a minor hardware upgrade as adding additional drive storage, but it's not and WILL in fact lose your DRM key and thus WILL lose access to your existing copy-protected WTV recordings) you won't lose access to your existing copy-protected recordings.
why are you trying to educate us when we all know you are wrong? yes you can add memory without loosing your DRM key.

it would be nice to know exactly what will cause loss of DRM... but certainly not adding memery alone will cause this to happen.

hot do I know? I had 4gb.... then undraded to 8gb of memory and lost Nothing.

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IT Troll

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#3

Post by IT Troll » Sat Oct 29, 2016 5:43 pm

Yes, I also found that a memory upgrade didn't cause a problem with DRM. But a CPU upgrade certainly did.

This knowledgebase article also cites a motherboard change as a cause.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/kb/891664
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DSperber

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#4

Post by DSperber » Sat Oct 29, 2016 8:39 pm

WMCuser wrote:why are you trying to educate us when we all know you are wrong? yes you can add memory without loosing your DRM key.

it would be nice to know exactly what will cause loss of DRM... but certainly not adding memery alone will cause this to happen.

hot do I know? I had 4gb.... then undraded to 8gb of memory and lost Nothing.
I am not "trying to educate you" regarding what hardware and setup changes do or do not cause loss of DRM key. [Of course it is "losing" not "loosing", and it is "memory" not "memery"... but I digress.)

I was fully expecting NO LOSS OF DRM KEY when I pursued my objective which was to expand my 2x4GB=8GB of memory to 24GB of memory by adding another 2x8GB=16GB of memory. I was already fully aware that changing motherboards (with its serial number), changing CPU's (with its serial number), and reinstalling Windows WOULD cause loss of DRM key. Hey, I even know that if you do a RESTORE of a "system image" from last week, you will lose DRM key access to all existing copy-protected programs you might have recorded since last week's date on that system image you just restored, because the DRM key itself is date/time-sensitive and the restore of last week's "image" just reset your operating date/time value back to last week's value, thus making it unusable for any old recordings made between that "image" date/time and the current date/time of the restore (although newly made copy-protected recordings going forward from the date/time moment of the restore will be playable just fine). And I already was fully aware that replacing/ugrading hard drives had NO EFFECT. I fully expected NO EFFECT from my addition of more memory.

So, I can at least expect you to be sympathetic to my complete surprise, bewilderment, and astonishment... not to mention real annoyance... when when I re-booted following the "hardware surgery" I had in fact lost my DRM key. Totally unexpected... AND YET IT HAPPENED!!! Do you think I am not telling the truth? Do you think I wanted to have to remove the 16GB I'd just purchased and worked hard to install (just because of the internal setup and large cooler fans over my CPU and resulting minor blockage and vertical clearance over the DIMM sockets, I had to move my existing 2x4GB memory cards to the other pair of DIMM slots in order to make room for the larger new 2x8GB memory cards into the currently used pair of DIMM slots), in a desperate attempt to restore my hardware-based DRM key so as not to lose several hundred copy-protected recordings?

Trust me, I didn't expect the result I got. Maybe you didn't have the same result when you expanded memory for who knows what reason. I certainly didn't expect this result, and yet it happened. I have no explanation, since you wouldn't think adding memory would be any different than adding drive storage/capacity. Yes, it shouldn't tip off WMC that this is a different machine and to thus invalidate the DRM key... but it did, for me and my particular machine and my new memory.

And to reinforce my results, as soon as I performed a second surgery and removed the just-added newly purchased 2x8GB=16GB of new memory, sure enough the components making up my DRM key were restored and I was once again able to play the old copy-protected recordings. That's a fact. Do you think I would have embarked on this project if I had expected in its wake to unexpectedly lose access to hundreds of copy-protected recordings I had fully expected never to impact at all by simply adding memory, like simply adding drive storage capacity?

And it didn't matter which pair of DIMM slots I used for the original 2x4GB=8GB of memory, either pair retained the DRM key. It was only after adding my additional 2x8GB of memory that the DRM key became invalid.

I am not alone in experiencing this unexpected anomaly, as the Interweb has other reports by other WMC users who've experienced the same symptom. And they were baffled and annoyed as well. You and others may not have experienced this symptom, but there are web-described stories of others who have.

So, if you can "get away with it" and add memory and NOT lose DRM key (which certainly was my expectation and goal when I made my purchase and installed the new memory), fabulous! Excellent. I wish I could share your joy.

Unfortunately, this was for some inexplicable reason not the outcome I had. I even had purchased Corsair memory (instead of Crucial memory, which is what I would normally do), just because I thought since my current memory was Corsair I might as well stay with them. Certainly never thought it would be relevant (and it's probably not). Honestly, I don't know why I got the result that I did... but I did. I've been running this very same installed Win7/WMC configuration since the total machine upgrade back in 2013, although I've upgraded drive storage significantly since then. Otherwise, same MB, same CPU, same memory, since the 2013 install. No explanation for why adding memory unexpectedly broke my DRM key, but it did.

Hence my statement... "you've been warned". It happened to me, and it's happened to at least some others, although perhaps not to you and a different set of some others. I'm not trying to "educate you". I simply advise you to at least be prepared for an unexpected surprise, should it happen to you as well like it did to me (and at least some others).

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#5

Post by WMCuser » Sun Oct 30, 2016 10:24 pm

well I have 9 tuners and 4 extenders. 3 HDhomerun primes. a HGST 4TB NAS 7200RPM hard drive takes care of the 9 tuners, not having extra memory. The extra memory is needed for the extenders is my understanding??
should I try upgrading to 16gb before I get to many recordings?
maybe I should do a test first... but I have a very lean windows 7 installation. I have been building my own computers since 1990 when they finally become affordable. I know how to do a fresh install of windows 7 and keep it lean..... and from what I am told 8gb is all you need. Now I have a feeling your system was not good on memory because your windows 7 install may be messed up?? and thanks for the last response to clear things up.
DSperber wrote:
WMCuser wrote:why are you trying to educate us when we all know you are wrong? yes you can add memory without loosing your DRM key.

it would be nice to know exactly what will cause loss of DRM... but certainly not adding memery alone will cause this to happen.

hot do I know? I had 4gb.... then undraded to 8gb of memory and lost Nothing.
I am not "trying to educate you" regarding what hardware and setup changes do or do not cause loss of DRM key. [Of course it is "losing" not "loosing", and it is "memory" not "memery"... but I digress.)

I was fully expecting NO LOSS OF DRM KEY when I pursued my objective which was to expand my 2x4GB=8GB of memory to 24GB of memory by adding another 2x8GB=16GB of memory. I was already fully aware that changing motherboards (with its serial number), changing CPU's (with its serial number), and reinstalling Windows WOULD cause loss of DRM key. Hey, I even know that if you do a RESTORE of a "system image" from last week, you will lose DRM key access to all existing copy-protected programs you might have recorded since last week's date on that system image you just restored, because the DRM key itself is date/time-sensitive and the restore of last week's "image" just reset your operating date/time value back to last week's value, thus making it unusable for any old recordings made between that "image" date/time and the current date/time of the restore (although newly made copy-protected recordings going forward from the date/time moment of the restore will be playable just fine). And I already was fully aware that replacing/ugrading hard drives had NO EFFECT. I fully expected NO EFFECT from my addition of more memory.

So, I can at least expect you to be sympathetic to my complete surprise, bewilderment, and astonishment... not to mention real annoyance... when when I re-booted following the "hardware surgery" I had in fact lost my DRM key. Totally unexpected... AND YET IT HAPPENED!!! Do you think I am not telling the truth? Do you think I wanted to have to remove the 16GB I'd just purchased and worked hard to install (just because of the internal setup and large cooler fans over my CPU and resulting minor blockage and vertical clearance over the DIMM sockets, I had to move my existing 2x4GB memory cards to the other pair of DIMM slots in order to make room for the larger new 2x8GB memory cards into the currently used pair of DIMM slots), in a desperate attempt to restore my hardware-based DRM key so as not to lose several hundred copy-protected recordings?

Trust me, I didn't expect the result I got. Maybe you didn't have the same result when you expanded memory for who knows what reason. I certainly didn't expect this result, and yet it happened. I have no explanation, since you wouldn't think adding memory would be any different than adding drive storage/capacity. Yes, it shouldn't tip off WMC that this is a different machine and to thus invalidate the DRM key... but it did, for me and my particular machine and my new memory.

And to reinforce my results, as soon as I performed a second surgery and removed the just-added newly purchased 2x8GB=16GB of new memory, sure enough the components making up my DRM key were restored and I was once again able to play the old copy-protected recordings. That's a fact. Do you think I would have embarked on this project if I had expected in its wake to unexpectedly lose access to hundreds of copy-protected recordings I had fully expected never to impact at all by simply adding memory, like simply adding drive storage capacity?

And it didn't matter which pair of DIMM slots I used for the original 2x4GB=8GB of memory, either pair retained the DRM key. It was only after adding my additional 2x8GB of memory that the DRM key became invalid.

I am not alone in experiencing this unexpected anomaly, as the Interweb has other reports by other WMC users who've experienced the same symptom. And they were baffled and annoyed as well. You and others may not have experienced this symptom, but there are web-described stories of others who have.

So, if you can "get away with it" and add memory and NOT lose DRM key (which certainly was my expectation and goal when I made my purchase and installed the new memory), fabulous! Excellent. I wish I could share your joy.

Unfortunately, this was for some inexplicable reason not the outcome I had. I even had purchased Corsair memory (instead of Crucial memory, which is what I would normally do), just because I thought since my current memory was Corsair I might as well stay with them. Certainly never thought it would be relevant (and it's probably not). Honestly, I don't know why I got the result that I did... but I did. I've been running this very same installed Win7/WMC configuration since the total machine upgrade back in 2013, although I've upgraded drive storage significantly since then. Otherwise, same MB, same CPU, same memory, since the 2013 install. No explanation for why adding memory unexpectedly broke my DRM key, but it did.

Hence my statement... "you've been warned". It happened to me, and it's happened to at least some others, although perhaps not to you and a different set of some others. I'm not trying to "educate you". I simply advise you to at least be prepared for an unexpected surprise, should it happen to you as well like it did to me (and at least some others).

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