WMC 8.8.5 MSI Installation Package for Win10/11

[garyan2]

I am surprised no one has done this earlier, but I have created an MSI installation package for WMC 8.8.5. This package has a lot of benefits that we don't get from the zip package we have been using for quite a while. I have it working without issue on Win10 and Win11 for ATSC. You can download it here.

• Install WMC in any location. This avoids a Windows update deleting the ehome folder.
• With this package you can add/remove without losing your WMC configuration and database. This is just like add/remove features in Win7.
• I updated all the satellite/transponders in the resource file.
• By default, the tuner limit will now be 32 for each tuner type without having to do anything.
• Disabled/Removed buttons that no longer work due to MS servers or webpages being down (guide ToS, data provider credits).
• Since it is an MSI package, it can do a repair if anything goes wrong with an update.
• No need to unzip anything or go through the steps to administratively install

What the msi package doesn't do right now:

• Doesn't automatically install the DVD Player if needed. It is a pre-requisite to installing the msi, but will download it for you.
• Doesn't suggest a reboot after uninstall (I'm working to find the best way to do this).

Note, if you already have WMC installed on the system, you will need to uninstall it prior to installing this. I would suggest making a backup of the database using the EPG123 client prior to uninstall so you can restore after this installation is complete and you perform a TV Setup.

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[garyan2]

Some feedback from anyone who has tried this. It looks like I am removing the en-US folder in ehome for those not installing on a US OS and some services may need that folder to install properly. If you are in the US and it works/doesn't work, let me know. For those outside the US, please also let me know.

Thank you.

EDIT: I went ahead and posted an update to keep all language mui's in the installation. There shouldn't be an issue for multi-language OS installs.

[prsa01]

This is fantastic, thanks Gary!

I'll be able to test and give feedback in the next few days.

Thanks again for all the things you do to keep WMC usable going forward.

[unclebun]

I just downloaded and installed it on Windows 11. Took only a couple of minutes to install and run through setup. Basically all I had to do was tell it where the recorded TV folder is on the homeserver. Since we have cable TV, I didn't bother with setting up live TV. Works fine. So you say it won't get wiped out by windows updates?

[garyan2]

So you say it won't get wiped out by windows updates?

No, I don't think I can say that. There are many ways a Windows update can break WMC, but what I can say is if it does break, you can just go the Windows Apps and click 'Modify' on Windows Media Center and choose to repair the installation. As long as the c:\programdata\microsoft\ehome folder is not deleted, and the update will not require a WMC version 8.8.6, then it should in theory get WMC back up and running pretty quickly.

[aquadextrous]

Hi Gary
Once again, great work. I uninstalled the old 8.8.5 and ran your installer, at first the new WMC wouldn't launch, no error or anything just did nothing. I manually deleted the old windows\ehome folder (it still had a couple of files left) and then the new install of WMC opened as it should. This may have been user error, as i'm not sure if i rebooted between uninstalling the old one and installing yours.

Everything runs smoothly, had to run a 'repair' setup on a couple of add-ins to get them working again (media center themer, my forecast and recorded tv hd were the ones that threw an error saying they couldn't be launched in background), this was to be expected though and is a 2 minute job, more of an FYI for anyone reading this.

This ones quite specific and I'm unsure how many people use DVBLink, in 8.8.5 (and i think a version or two before this) DVBLink stopped working and channels would not play from the TV Guide, someone clever worked out that placing a file "MSVidCtl.dll.mui" into the language folders fixed it. On initial install i can confirm that DVBLink would not play TV channels, but copying the file manually (i got mine from the en-gb folder of the original WMC8.8.5 zip) did the trick and TV channels played again instantly. Weirdly the dll file is in all of the 8.8.5 language folders, but never got placed by the installer. I'm not sure if there's a reason for this, but it would be handy if it happened automagically with the install.
Also - maybe more an epg123 thing, i manually copied and replaced my database files and this worked fine, above it's suggested to use the backup / restore options on epg123, but when I've used these features (and the rebuild database) thought guide settings, recordings etc are intact epg123 says it cant find any tuners and so i end up having to run tv setup from scratch. I don't know if this happens with all tuners or it's just DVBLink, but manually restoring the database files retained all the tuner information and required no TV setup.

Thanks again

[garyan2]

Yah, I found out that the windows\ehome folder may not get removed when uninstalling the WMC8.8.5 zip probably due to problems shutting down ehRecvr service which I see on my uninstall as well. I'll have to make sure the folder isn't there prior to installing or it won't work.

Interesting on the MSVidCtl.dll.mui. That is not present at all with my version of 8.8.5, so I don't have a copy of it. When I do, I'll place it in the install (in every language folder?).

The newer version of epg123 will adapt to changes in tuner GUIDs. The restore and rebuild should work for situations like this, but copying will work as well.

[aquadextrous]

Oh yeah, when i looked in the zip its not there, i must have placed into my unzipped folder. I've sent you a file with the mui dll in it to your support email. My original ehome file only had en-gb and en-us so i put it in both. I did the same for the new WMC install and it worked fine, but i guess it depends on what the display language is and whether it needs to be in the one being used.

[garyan2]

Got it. Thank you. So I'll be updating the msi to include the mui file in all languages, though probably en-US would suffice... eh, it's only diskspace. I'll also make sure the windows\ehome folder is deleted prior to installing to cover that issue.

[garyan2]

MSI installer v1.0.2 posted with the MSVidCtl.dll.mui files. Also, changed back from installing all mui files/folders to just those that the OS supports and en-US as the fallback.

[garyan2]

Just a note right now. Evidently the code to delete the windows\ehome folder leftover from 8.8.5 zip install wasn't good enough. This is still an issue.

[aquadextrous]

MSI installer v1.0.2 posted with the MSVidCtl.dll.mui files. Also, changed back from installing all mui files/folders to just those that the OS supports and en-US as the fallback.

I uninstalled the original one and removed all traces, then installed the latest version and can confirm the MSVidCtl.dll.mui file is in the language folders and that WMC plays DVBLink tuner channels fine with no additional intervention.

On a positive for a happy easy WMC life, Windows 11 seems much more of a stable base than 10 given that the way feature updates are delivered doesn't seem to break WMC (I'm still in the beta channel, have had many Win 11 version bump updates and none have broken WMC so far) like they did on 10, but it's good to know that fixing any potential future breakages should hopefully be only a couple of clicks with the new installer.

I am so grateful to you Gary and the others here and on MDL who help keep WMC alive.

[garyan2]

That's good to hear, and happy to help out.

I will be posting a new version later after some testing to take care of that pesky ehome folder leftover from an 8.8.5 zip uninstall. When the system latches on to the true type font files, it really doesn't want to let go. So far, I have been able to take care of them, but it is very important that after the 8.8.5 uninstall that the system is rebooted. If I tried to install the msi without a reboot I wasn't able to delete the fonts. The new version will also throw an exception and abort installation if it was not successful in deleting the ehome folder so there won't be any confusion on whether it was successful or not.

If there are any DVB-S/DVB-T users that have tried this, let me know if it worked for you. I have a report of WMC TV Setup getting stuck at the 'Examining TV Signals' stage and can't proceed, or even cancel. I built a machine with an old TBS8922 tuner, and though it was slow in responding to the cancel, it did let me proceed with setup successfully.

This should probably be the last update unless I get some ideas on altering some the resource files/pages.

[Speedy]

There's some issues with latest Win 11 insider build 22557.

1. Your .msi installer can be run from disk C: only; when run from D:, in a moment there's the message "Installation interrupted" - it isn't any important problem, of course

2. In the TV setup WMC stuck on the screen "Pobieranie danych konfiguracji telewizji" in Polish; in English probably something like "TV data download", this is next screen after this where you inform about removing TV Program Guide by Microsoft and EPG as alternative. At this moment WMC windows isn't frozen, buttons Back and Cancel are available.

[garyan2]

For #1, I'll check that out. I'm not aware of any msi limitations on where the installation can be initiated from.

For #2, this is a possibility for any TV Setup, not just the msi. It is trying to contact the Microsoft servers to download headeand data for your country/postal region. I found you can avoid this by configuring the WMC Internet to not be always on. I have some instruction on the website on how to do that. https://garyan2.github.io/win10.html

[Speedy]

Thank you Greg! It works perfectly (#2).

With other versions WMC (8.8.4, 8.8.5..) I have no such problem with TV Setup. On this step WMC try to contact the Microsoft servers, of course can't and after minute or two shows message that "Play Ready can't be downloaded" or something like this, and setup would be proceed further.

[MaRvIn054]

Hi Gary, I want to send you a Big Thanks!
I was struggling since a few weeks to make WMC working on a fresh win10 21h2 setup with 8.8.5 package, and for some reason I've been unable to get LiveTV working. Try to start it, it was keeping doing nothing at all, without message or error.
Uninstalling 8.8.5, and reinstalling WMC from your package, everything went flawlessly to a perfect working situation including LiveTV feeded in with DVBLink v6 sources.
I can now move one step forward leaving here Windows 8.1.

Thanks again

MaRvIn054.

[Venom51]

Hi Gary, I want to send you a Big Thanks!
I was struggling since a few weeks to make WMC working on a fresh win10 21h2 setup with 8.8.5 package, and for some reason I've been unable to get LiveTV working. Try to start it, it was keeping doing nothing at all, without message or error.
Uninstalling 8.8.5, and reinstalling WMC from your package, everything went flawlessly to a perfect working situation including LiveTV feeded in with DVBLink v6 sources.
I can now move one step forward leaving here Windows 8.1.

Thanks again

MaRvIn054.

I ran into this with 8.8.5 as well. You get no spinning circle no error...it just does nothing. Pulling the install and running 8.8.4 works on some machines and on others I got codec errors. Installing a codec pack resolves that. I am still working on a valid replacement but for now I have a new WDS image created that gets me to a working 21H2 Pro with MCE working pretty quickly.

[garyan2]

Okay, I'm really close to releasing a "final" version. I'm going to call this version 8.9.0. One reason is due to a completely different delivery mechanism, but in actually this is 8.5 - 8.8.5 for all versions of Win10 and Win11 (so far).

For Win10 1507 thru 1709, it is equivalent to 8.8.1
For Win10 1803 thru 1809, it is equivalent to 8.8.2 (add EncDec and MSVidCtl)
For Win10 1903 thru 1909, it is equivalent to 8.8.4 (add CPFilters)
For Win10 2004 thru 21H2, it is equivalent to 8.8.5 (add SQL)

Carried in all versions is the startup link to the tray app and allowing WMC to use TLS1.2.

Due to the various installations based on OS build numbers, the msi repair option has been disabled. It will still do a self-repair if needed, but you can't initiate a repair... doesn't work.

I've tested it on 1507, 1511, 1607, 1803, 1909, 20H2, and 21H2 and it works. I've gone through a feature update from 1803 to 20H2 and it automatically reinstalled during the update and worked. It did however have a database recovery and needed to run TV Setup again. I didn't think of testing whether epg123 backup/restore or rebuild would make that simpler.

[dmcq]

That's good to hear, and happy to help out.

I will be posting a new version later after some testing to take care of that pesky ehome folder leftover from an 8.8.5 zip uninstall. When the system latches on to the true type font files, it really doesn't want to let go. So far, I have been able to take care of them, but it is very important that after the 8.8.5 uninstall that the system is rebooted. If I tried to install the msi without a reboot I wasn't able to delete the fonts. The new version will also throw an exception and abort installation if it was not successful in deleting the ehome folder so there won't be any confusion on whether it was successful or not.

If there are any DVB-S/DVB-T users that have tried this, let me know if it worked for you. I have a report of WMC TV Setup getting stuck at the 'Examining TV Signals' stage and can't proceed, or even cancel. I built a machine with an old TBS8922 tuner, and though it was slow in responding to the cancel, it did let me proceed with setup successfully.

This should probably be the last update unless I get some ideas on altering some the resource files/pages.

This was me - not a problem with Gary's msi but a tuner that went faulty internally.
Symptoms -
Tuner removed - MCE setup run - NO TUNERS FOUND - as expected.
Tuner reinstalled - drivers installed, Device Manager happy - MCE setup starts doesn't flag anything about tuners - so thinks its got some until Examining Signals - then hangs
New Tuner - no problems.
Well done Gary.