WMC incompatible with new hardware?

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camtah

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WMC incompatible with new hardware?

#1

Post by camtah » Wed Mar 07, 2018 1:28 pm

I admit I haven't been keep up with the happenings in the HW world lately. Up until now, my setup with my HTPC (win 7/wmc) and my xbox 360 extender in my workout room was working fine. I did have a MB failure a month or two back, but I fixed it with an old "like" type and was back in business. I use a HDHR with Xfinity as my source. I have DRM channels hence the reason that I use WMC.

Now, that MB died. In searching for a replacement (LGA 1150 with M2), the prices are pretty high for such an old MB design. In fact, it was almost a wash for updating to new HW (MB/CPU/MEM) that I took the plunge yesterday.

So I did my diligent search on specs, etc and settled on a Kaby Lake i3-7100, Asus B250 w/8GB. My SSD is a M2, so I needed a MB that supported it. Moving up in the world...or so I thought!

Well the HW works fine except that it doesn't like win7...hmmmm...a little more research on my part..!!! a box pops up that states my SW isn't compatible with my HW and that I should upgrade to WIN10!!! A little more research confirmed this notion. I didn't see that coming and I suppose in retrospect it's my fault for "assuming" that it would work.

I could bite the bullet but the thought of buying win 10 for my HTPC is leaving a bad taste in my mouth and I would still loose my XBOX360 extender (unless I am mistaken)

So....any advice on moving forward (besides dropping DRM channels and paying for the internet packages..that is another story)?

Thanks...

jachin99

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#2

Post by jachin99 » Wed Mar 07, 2018 1:51 pm

At this point if you are trying to retain your hardware investment, do some research about how others have installed Win 7 on current gen hardware. I know its possible, and there are some who are perfectly happy with their setup after they have everything all set up. There are some posts around here that should point you to other sites that explain more.

Alan G

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#3

Post by Alan G » Wed Mar 07, 2018 1:55 pm

Sorry to hear about your issues. Of course MSFT wants everyone on Win10 but that means WMC implementation is really hard. Carey Holzman has a video about how to install Win7 on Kaby Lake systems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VTC4k6SLWY There are also other resources on the Internet about this. I upgraded late last year but only to Skylake which does not have any issues with Win7. I'm playing things safe and kept my old Ivy Bridge build as a backup just in case.

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StinkyImp

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#4

Post by StinkyImp » Wed Mar 07, 2018 2:40 pm

I bought one of these about 6-8 months ago just so I could keep my Win7 and WMC setup with no hassles. You can't beat it for the price. I think when I bought mine I paid less than $100 for the 8GB version. I threw in an SSD and I've been nothing but happy with it.

I use the onboard HDMI and purchased a SoundBlaster Audigy FX audio card to interface with my surround sound. Everything else was scavenged from my old system. I only have one slot left inside and I'm reserving that for when I decide to jump to 4K. For now I'm perfectly happy at 1080.

I'm "all in" on this system for less than $200.

EDIT: I actually purchased mine on Ebay...

camtah

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#5

Post by camtah » Wed Mar 07, 2018 2:47 pm

StinkyImp wrote:I bought one of these about 6-8 months ago just so I could keep my Win7 and WMC setup with no hassles. You can't beat it for the price. I think when I bought mine I paid less than $100 for the 8GB version. I threw in an SSD and I've been nothing but happy with it.

I use the onboard HDMI and purchased a SoundBlaster Audigy FX audio card to interface with my surround sound. Everything else was scavenged from my old system. I only have one slot left inside and I'm reserving that for when I decide to jump to 4K. For now I'm perfectly happy at 1080.

I'm "all in" on this system for less than $200.
That's a good idea I should have considered, but in my HTPC is in a really nice Silverstone case in my audio rack (matched the rest of my audio HW. I mostly use it to rip disks to my computer, watch TV and DVR some when I am down there. I do have Office installed for group presentations, etc so I have a pretty nice Nvidia 1070 card installed as well.

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StinkyImp

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#6

Post by StinkyImp » Wed Mar 07, 2018 3:40 pm

camtah wrote:That's a good idea I should have considered, but in my HTPC is in a really nice Silverstone case in my audio rack (matched the rest of my audio HW. I mostly use it to rip disks to my computer, watch TV and DVR some when I am down there. I do have Office installed for group presentations, etc so I have a pretty nice Nvidia 1070 card installed as well.
If I were in that situation I'd still buy the cheap Win 7 machine, gut it, and then transfer it to my Silverstone case. Of course, I'm cheap and lazy that way. ;) I'd rather have compatible (i.e. simple, no hassle) hardware and a licensed copy of Win 7 with WMC.

The rest is just cosmetic.

Alan G

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#7

Post by Alan G » Thu Mar 08, 2018 2:21 pm

StinkyImp wrote:I bought one of these about 6-8 months ago just so I could keep my Win7 and WMC setup with no hassles. You can't beat it for the price. I think when I bought mine I paid less than $100 for the 8GB version. I threw in an SSD and I've been nothing but happy with it.
These are units Dell manufactured for business settings. It was the desktop unit of choice at my former employer (retired now). It is a good solid PC and maybe these are refurbished units?? I see they have a one year warranty so that doesn't matter much. The web link that you provide shows that they offer some upgrades in terms of storage and WiFi. Certainly this is a decent deal.

camtah

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#8

Post by camtah » Fri Mar 09, 2018 1:47 am

UPDATE: I did the Kaby Lake mod Io get updates working and to remove the nag screen. I still could not get Playready to work. Even the HDHR Program which worked flawlessly, had issues with AVC Channels. I realized that I had a Win10 available to me (legal) so I decided to bite the bullet and move on to Win10. At least I can watch all my DRM Channels as well.

For me WMC had a good run and it was a pity MS decided to abandoned it. I can use my Plex server to serve up Music/Video's etc. i won't miss the DVR since Streaming video has come along and frankly, there isn't much I would record nowadays anyway.

I will dump my xbox360 at some point and wait for the next greatest to come along ....Cheers

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StinkyImp

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#9

Post by StinkyImp » Fri Mar 09, 2018 6:18 pm

Alan G wrote:These are units Dell manufactured for business settings. It was the desktop unit of choice at my former employer (retired now). It is a good solid PC and maybe these are refurbished units?? I see they have a one year warranty so that doesn't matter much. The web link that you provide shows that they offer some upgrades in terms of storage and WiFi. Certainly this is a decent deal.

I went back and checked where I purchased it and it was actually NewEgg. And you're correct! It was a block of "off-lease" machines that were refurbished by a Microsoft certified shop and backed by NewEgg.

That's why I felt comfortable buying it (plus the whole machine was cheaper than a Win 7 license). It was kind of a no-brainer since it's only used as a standalone HTPC.

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#10

Post by Paul Anderegg » Sun Mar 25, 2018 4:48 am

Got me an i7-6700k with Z170 m.2 MB...last and greatest WMC compatible PC I will ever be able to assemble. I would not own a desktop PC if I couldn't have WMC...I've got a laptop for that junk.

Paul

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