WMC in Windows 10 with EPG123

[captain_video]

I've been thinking about trying the WMC install on a Windows 10 platform and I'm curious as to how EPG123 will work with it. Has anyone tried it with a WMC install on Windows 10? I assume it will still work since WMC is the same. Just curious if anyone has has done it yet.

[stuartm]

As stated on the donwload page for EPG123 on Gary's site: "epg123Setup_v1.3.3.40.zip Installation package for Win7/Win8/Win8.1/Win10"
There are numerous posts in the EPG123 forum from people using it with win 10.

[captain_video]

Sweet! Thanks.

[DSperber]

Just in case you were unaware of my own research into this general topic, last year I worked on using a Win10 "host" machine on which I supported a Win7-VM (through free VMWare Workstation Player 15.5) machine. And inside the Win7-VM machine I ran both EPG123 as well as WMC itself, exactly as if they were running on a true native physical Win7 machine. I had complete success.

My implementation progress is documented by a thread here on this forum. You might want to look at it.

My own WMC setup includes both Ceton Ethernet tuner (which CAN be supported by VMWare and Win7-VM to feed WMC running in Win7-VM), as an ordinary network device on my LAN, as well as an internal PCIe Hauppauge HD-Quad OTA/ATSC tuner which is supported by NextPVR running in native Win10. NextPVR's recordings are TS files, and are accessible to WMC running inside the Win7-VM. And WMC is able to play TS files as "videos".

So in addition to its own native WTV recording files created by WMC running inside Win7-VM, it also can play TS files recorded by NextPVR in native Win10. And NextPVR (in Win10) uses the exact same Schedules Direct subscription for its nightly Guide data updates as is also used by EPG123 (running inside Win7-VM) for its own nightly Guide data updates.

And WMC in Win7-VM still supports WMC extenders for remote TV locations around the house, which it turns out is the ONLY way to view copy-protected programs... on the extender/TV setups. Because the Win10 graphics driver HDCP functionality is not provided fully to the Win7-VM environment, you cannot play copy-protected content (e.g. ALL content from cable provider Spectrum through cablecard-enabled Ceton tuners) on a local monitor connected to the Win10 machine. These copy-protected files can only be played on a TV supported by a WMC extender. But normal non-copy-protected files (e.g. from the Hauppauge OTA/ATSC tuner card, recorded through NextPVR) CAN be played on locally connected monitors. I felt this was a very minor compromise and didn't consider it a deal-breaker. I have no problem watching ALL content through extender/TV locations.

I took this approach because I did not want to deal with the difficulties of trying to get WMC to run "native Win10", which is totally unsupported. Of course so is Win7 and WMC after January, so both are unsupported. But at least Win7 WORKS, and WMC in a Win7 environment WORKS, and WAS SUPPORTED UNTIL NOW. So its a 100% functioning product with no issues. And now that I've proven it also can work perfectly inside Win7-VM, well that's good reason to go with that method and run both WMC and EPG123 in Win7-VM, just as if they were running on a real physical Win7 machine.

Note that I also had a similar thread going on TenForums, which you also might want to look at.

I also had a thread on the VMWare forum, asking a question about how to access the drives of native Win10 to programs running inside of Win7-VM (i.e. populating the drive letters for Windows Explorer to actually be the same "real" drives as are in Win10). That thread would be very helpful to you if you were a newbie to VM as I was.

[DSperber]

So, if your needs are strictly OTA/ATSC copy-freely content using something like a Hauppauge card, you might consider NextPVR which runs as a 100% native Win10 application. And NextPVR uses Schedules Direct as its EPG data source (same as EPG123 would do), so your subscription is 100 usable. NextPVR is a very fine replacement for WMC, but doesn't support the cablecard-enabled Ceton cards for copy-protected content since it doesn't support the same DRM and PlayReady as WMC does.

But for non-copy-protected content, NextPVR is excellent. Supported by an interested developer and user community/forum, along with "citizen developers" for plug-ins, add-ons, etc. I know we're all familiar with and comfortable with WMC and its interface after so many years. But NextPVR is really very similar... it just looks slightly different (e.g. in its settings interface, etc.). But you can get used to it very easily. Its an excellent DVR, which is what's really important. And it uses Schedules Direct data, which makes it accurate as well.

It was because I needed to support my Ceton tuners for cable programs, that I needed MORE than just NextPVR. Hence my hybrid idea, of using NextPVR in native Win10 for my Hauppauge card, and WMC/EPG123 inside of Win7-VM... with the TS recordings of NextPVR usable directly as "videos" by WMC inside of Win7-VM.

[captain_video]

I'm using both Ceton InfiniTV 6 and SD HDHomeRun Prime cablecard tuners so I can record copy protected content on FIOS plus a HDHR Quatro for OTA/ATSC recording in WMC. I'm stuck with using WMC until someone comes up with another solution for recording copy protected channels other than the HDHR DVR app.

I've never really considered running Windows 7 on a virtual PC, mainly because it runs just fine on its own and I still have hardware that I can run it on. I built a 1st generation Ryzen HTPC a while back using a modified iso image of Windows 7 so it can work with the USB3 ports on a Gigabyte Aorus motherboard. I didn't have much luck with the NVMe drivers though so I stuck with a standard 2.5" SSD for the OS. I haven't put it into service yet because my current setup is running fine. It's basically there as a backup in case I ever need it. I've also got a mini-iTX setup running Windows 10 that I haven't used yet either so I may try installing WMC on that one and see how it goes.

I know virtually nothing about VMWare (no pun intended) so I'll definitely check out the thread you pointed me to. I never really understood why anyone would need to run an OS on a virtual platform that can be run directly on a normal PC by itself. It's kind of like running Windows on a Mac, although I can see why that would be attractive with the plethora of software available for a PC vs. a Mac. But then that begs the question as to why buy a Mac if you want to run Windows since the hardware really isn't all that much different and a PC will cost you much less. I'm sure there must be a rational explanation for it, but the logic escapes me at the moment.

[DSperber]

I actually have two HTPC physical Win7 machines which I plan to run long into the future, despite January 2020. Both include both Ceton and Hauppauge tuners. One is "production" and was built to replace the other one during a miserable 8-month period of instability and "freeze" symptoms when I was suspicious of hardware as one possible cause. As it turns out, the actual cause was a software conflict between Malwarebytes and non-free Macrium Reflect Home, both of which I use. Eventually I worked with engineers for both software products and Macrium Reflect decided their product could be changed in a very simple minor way that was "simple" for them and 100% resolved the software conflict responsible for the "freeze".

So actually, I still have a backlog of unviewed copy-protected recordings on the original HTPC as I built the second HTPC in the midst of a crisis, before I was able to view-down all previous copy-protected content before moving to a new Ceton-enabled Win7 machine. This is the very machine I also used to perform my "WMC in Win7-VM under Win10 Host" project, so I really don't want to make the radical decision to go to the Win10 implementation either, as I will again lose all of the backlog of unviewed copy-protected recordings. I still use the WMC extenders connected to the original HTPC periodically in order to make some progress, little by little, to slowly view-down those old copy-protected recordings I don't want to just lose before making the switch to the Win10 environment.

I have a non-MS anti-virus (BitDefender) which presumably will still support running on Win7, even after January. So as far as I'm concerned both of my Win7 HTPC machines are completely stable, and I am certainly willing to run them forever (actually only the"production" machine needs to run forever, as I will eventually view-down all copy-protected content on the first machine, after which I can genuinely re-purpose it for Win10 use, no matter whether or not I ever make use of WMC running in Win7-VM for real or simply as a "backup"). I only embarked on the WMC in Win7-VM project as an experimental research effort, just to see if could be accomplished, since I really would prefer moving to Win10 because it is the MS-supported Windows and thus all new hardware I might ever be interested in will be built for Win10.

And I, too, knew essentially nothing when I began about actually installing and using VM of any kind, and absolutely zero specifically about VMWare (which I decided to try first because it was a 3rd-party vendor product and therefore more likely to be function-rich and address user needs, and have prompt support from the vendor as well as an enthusiastic user community). My choice of VMWare Workstation Player as the platform was because it was free, and yet was supposed to be fully capable of running Win7-VM as I required. But my idea of using Win10 and VM to run WMC in Win7-VM was not because I couldn't still keep running my two perfectly fine physical Win7 HTPC machines, but only because I really wouldn't mind moving to Win10 as my "production" environment.

[shpitz461]

I'm currently running WMC on Windows 10 19H2, build 10.0.18363.535.

I couldn't get it to work on latest 1909 20H1, WMC refused to find the HDHomeRun tuners, so I cleanly installed the version above.

WMC works great except i can't see recordings thumbnails, but guide with EPG123 works great.

Here's a link to the V13 version: viewtopic.php?t=12255

Running it on a NUC i5.