Thoughts about the WMC menu

[jachin99]

In my ongoing attempt at restoring some of the original functionality to Windows Media Center, I've come a theory about where the start menu lives, and how I might go about changing it. The most obvious answer, and the one I come across the most points me to programs that were specifically designed to change the existing start menu as it looks today so that answer usually involves media center studio, or media center themer, etc. These programs are helpful in other situations but they don't put me any closer to my goals. The second way to edit the start menu is through the documented API via the RegisterMCEApp.exe, and Register.Application interfaces. These MIGHT help if I am able to find at a bare minimum the GUID for the original Netflix app, the sports strip, and internet TV but I don't think this the most direct route that will get me from where I am now to where I want to be.

Through my experimentation with Media Center Studio, it was discovered that using the restore defaults function of the program causes the sports strip to reappear but I never really understood why until now. I believe that when the creator of that program was writing it, he copied his own start menu into the programs code, and linked I to the restore defaults button. This point of view has been reinforced in my mind by the fact that I have read criticisms about the way MCS's creator coded the program, and to me it seems the better way to write MCS would be to load the existing start menu on a given user's computer, read its values, change those values, and then place the newly edited start strip back onto that user's PC. After restoring the original Netflix strip, and learning that I can move it from movies to TV via Media Center Studio I've come to a hypothesis that the start menu itself "lives" in the dll file markup.dll located in the folder C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\eHome\Packages\MCEClientUX\UpdateableMarkup (Its even called UPDATEABLE markup!!) . I can copy an old version of this file onto my pc and replace my current markup.dll, and this action restores Netflix. Looking at when MCS was developed, and examining the timeline of when things like Netflix, sports, and Itv slowly disappeared it seems to me that I might be able to dig up old copies of markup.dll, place them in my updateable markup folder, and have things like Itv restored on my PC.

I don't believe that markup.dll is the exact file I'm after but I do believe that the file lives somewhere in that dll. What I'm asking of anyone who reads this is if you have old backups of WMC, can you please send me markup.dll. In particular I'm looking for versions of that file from the following time periods

Prior to the sports strip disappearing in late 2013
Prior to ITV disappearing in late 2011 (ish??)

I believe that a large part of these programs still live somewhere in WMC and the registry today, and after looking at the SDK Itv sample application, it appears you can add some functionality through the programming interfaces I outlined above via XML files. I would also like to have full copies of your ehome folders from both program data, and windows folders, as well as your registries. Watching a video about Itv setup in WMC, it appears that it downloaded a file during setup. If someone has that file I would like that as well. I know WMC is dying, and development is all but dead but I do think that with enough caretakers the software can live on for years to come.

[jachin99]

I just tried to reregister the iTV ms music application but the command line returned an error saying the application was already registered. That makes sense but that leaves me with finding those two files above, which doesn't look possible given the amount of interest in this thread. Anyone out there with an MSDN subscription or access to old files and software from MS would be helpful.