How to re-install Win7 and WMC

[a440guy]

I need to re-install Windows 7 on my HTPC. What do I need to do so that when I re-install WMC I can get everything back the way it was? (I'm using EPG123 for program guide).

[DavidinCT]

If you still have your system up, make sure you make notes of what apps you have to install, what drivers you will need, etc....

Pre-download everything and back up what you need. There are some Series Backup programs, you should be able to do this through EPG123 or other 3rd party apps...

Installing Windows 7 is pretty strait forward...

Install Windows 7, Do your updates, Install EPG123, configure, Start WMC, setup TV, etc, Get the guide up and running, set your channel lineup. and test...

[garyan2]

For EPG123 (and WMC), you need to create a backup of the "old" system to transfer to the "new." Open the client and click the [Backup] button and store the resulting .zip file somewhere to restore. You should also copy the configuration file for EPG123 from c:\programdata\garyan2\epg123\epg123.cfg.

On the new system, before you restore EPG123, you need to run through the WMC setup and perform a TV Setup. It is only necessary to go to the point where it starts scanning for channels to get WMC to create the registry entries for your tuners. After that, and after you have installed EPG123 and restore the epg123.cfg file, open the client and click the [Restore] button pointing to the .zip file created on the old system. If you Tweaked the guide layout, you can do it while the client is open as well. Once that is done, open the configuration GUI and click [Save & Execute] to download the guide data and import into WMC. Once the import is done, you should be good.

Keep in mind that you lose the history of your recordings so if you have any series setup to record new and repeats, it will record repeats you may already have.

Last thing, if you use CableCARD, there are some files you should copy over as well but I am not familiar with what and/or how but there should be plenty of threads here that describe it.

[StinkyImp]

I need to re-install Windows 7...

We've all been there. Here's a few tricks I use to make this painless.

I clone my primary drive once a month. It takes less than a half hour. If my main drive gets corrupted or dies, I simply plug the clone in its place. This takes just a few minutes and I'm back up and running.

In the worst case where I actually have to re-install Win 7 I use a license backup to "reactivate" my Windows license without having to contact Microsoft. This is especially handy since activating Win7 is getting exceedingly hard. I use a program called Advanced Tokens Manager and have used it for years. It can be downloaded from here.

NOTE: I backup my license to (and restore from) Dropbox. It's been years since I've had to do it but I had to do it a number of times before I started doing the (much simpler and more stable) cloning procedure! Luckily I haven't had to use either of these for quite a few years but they're available if I need them.

[DavidinCT]

I clone my primary drive once a month. It takes less than a half hour. If my main drive gets corrupted or dies, I simply plug the clone in its place. This takes just a few minutes and I'm back up and running.

Same here type of thing. I run backups of the OS drive only every Friday, and rotate for 4 weeks, so I only keep 4 weeks on hand at all times. I do keep a master (last major config change)..

It's saved my butt many times over the years, system can die, I can replace the OS drive, and restore, 45 min I am back exactly the way was last Friday...

[a440guy]

Thank you all for your suggestions. I re-installed Win7 and everything else. I had had a backup of my boot drive, but restoring it didn't work. Damn! Before I restored all the recordings to C:\Users\Public\Public Recorded TV, made another system backup. I didn't clone my drive because it's so large (4TB) that I would need a huge external drive to do so. (There's no space inside the case for another drive.) But, I'm thinking about it.

garyan2's suggestion to use the epg123 client to backup the database and restore it and to save the epg123.cfg file was very helpful.

I made some big mistakes, though. I decided to take the opportunity to install a faster hard drive. When everything had been re-installed, I found that I couldn't play my copy-protected recordings. I had previously upgraded my RAM and CPU with no problems. But, apparently upgrading my hard drive caused Windows to think that I had a different computer. So, I put the original hard drive and CPU back in and re-reinstalled Windows, hoping that it would generate DRM keys that would allow me to play my copy-protected recordings. That failed. I'm probably going to have to abandon WMC anyway because I can't view or record properly copy-protected channels (see https://www.thegreenbutton.tv/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=13886).

[Space]

Changing certain hardware (or enough hardware) can make the machine look like a different machine and therefore makes it impossible to play back previous DRM recordings, but just changing the drive once or twice is unlikely to break DRM. However, re-installing Windows (instead of doing an image restore of your previously imaged windows partition) WILL make your machine look like a different machine and cause DRM to break (this is what most likely happened to you).

I have changed Windows system drives several times without breaking DRM, but I used the free version of Macrium Reflect to backup and restore the partitions between the drives. A regular Windows install on the new drive will never work.

Also, if you have a large drive where Windows exists, you should partition that drive so that Windows is installed in one partition and you can use the other partition for you recordings. I used an 80gb partition for windows on my multi terabyte drive. Then you only have to backup the 80gb partition (and sometimes a couple other tiny partitions, Macrium will automatically select the right ones) to make sure you have Windows backed up. Of course this leaves your second partition (the one with the recordings) without a backup, but you can do that separately if you wish, or just live dangerously without one.

[lostgreycells]

USING CABLECARD

My initial shortcuts after reinstallation involved using: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/top ... 8e918feeba
and
windows6.1-kb3125574-v4-x64_2dafb1d203c8964239af3048b5dd4b1264cd93b9.msu
https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.co ... =kb3125574

To reinstall Windows 7 and get WMC running on a new box using cablecard: PLAYREADY is a must!
https://garyan2.github.io/drm.html

cablecard via Comcast (Xfinity). When these cards are the source for your content, the provider won't allow playback of protected content (DRM). In my case, plenty of other good channels are available watch and record