Any success with Windows 10 1909?

Discussion of getting WMC to work on Windows 10 (unsupported)
twegner

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Any success with Windows 10 1909?

#1

Post by twegner » Thu Nov 14, 2019 6:34 pm

I have been happily using Windows Media Center with EPG123 on Windows 10 1903 for a few months, after using WMC on Windows 7 for many years. I do understand that Windows update can mess up WMC on Windows 10. However I am a fanatic about backups and could easily recover if I screwed things up (he says bravely!). I did the update to 1909 from 1903 on another computer and it seems more like a quality update than a feature update, so I am game to try, just thought I would ask here first if anyone has tried this. (Of course there is no rational reason any sane person would try a fresh update to the latest Windows 10 on a WMC machine, but who said I was sane?)

So has anyone tried the Windows 10 1909 "feature" update?

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Scallica

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#2

Post by Scallica » Thu Nov 14, 2019 8:39 pm

I didn't know WMC could run on 1903. What version of WMC did you install and did you have any difficulty?
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twegner

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#3

Post by twegner » Thu Nov 14, 2019 10:24 pm

I used technodevotee's 64 bit WMC-13 version installed on windows 10 1903. See: viewtopic.php?f=97&t=12255
I won't say it was totally straightforward, and in the end I needed a little help from technodevotee himself. There was one script in his package that got rid of a really bad-sounding error message that my tuner wasn't recognized, but when I ran the script, suddenly everything worked and it's been fine since. All in all, technodevotee's instructions and code worked very well.

I found the my correspondence on the problem I had here: viewtopic.php?f=97&t=12431&p=133490#p133490

(later) I decided not to wait to hear of others' experience, so I upgraded my htpc to Windows 10 1909. It took about 10 minutes and several reboots, and when done, WMC seemed to be working just fine. I will report back after I get a few days of experience. There could always be a problem I don't see right away, but so far so good. In an hour the PBS Newshour is scheduled to record, we shall see!

There is a huge caveat to this experiment. Windows 10 1909 update is not really a normal twice yearly feature update. It's more like a security update. A normal feature update saves off your current setup, installs a brand new Windows version, and restores your settings and apps. WMC is much less likely to survive such a big change. For whatever reason, 1909 is a very minimal update, so I figured the risk was much less, and apparently that was correct. So I probably won't try this again for the 2003 update (or whatever they call it) in six months.

There's really no reason for others here to do this. I'm just an insane and compulsive geek. A geek who has an SSD lying around for safety with Windows 7, WMC, and EPG123 current to last August that I can just pop in my HTPC if Windows 10 crashes and burns!

(still later) My WMC with Windows 10 1909 is working just great, everything looks the same as before I upgraded from 1903, and several programs were successfully recorded.

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#4

Post by technodevotee » Fri Nov 15, 2019 8:53 am

@twegner

Indications are that WMC will be fine on 1909 as long as you use the workarounds. After build 18958 Microsoft have removed SQLLite so there will be one additional add-on to run.

You commented that installation isn't completely straightforward and there is a reason for that: It was intended to retain all the 'original' functionality of WMC V12 while being able to keep it running no matter what.

Unlike Kevin Chalet, who has successfully updated components of WMC by building workarounds into V8 so that it can be installed without any additional work, I took all the workarounds users here and elsewhere have posted and made them into add-ons that can be employed as problems are encountered.

WMC13 was never intended to be the latest and greatest, I just wanted to keep all the files as they were in V12 so that I could continue to run WMC full screen in an RDP session.

Ultimately, the choice of which version to install is yours to make.

edit: Unless you are running 32bit Windows 10 after 1709, when the only version you can install is V13.

edit 2: Fresh install of 1909 or upgrade doesn't make any difference, it works fine other than the above mentioned caveats.
Last edited by technodevotee on Fri Nov 15, 2019 7:21 pm, edited 3 times in total.

shpitz461

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#5

Post by shpitz461 » Fri Nov 15, 2019 12:23 pm

I'm having an issue with 'tuner not found', running Win10 1909 build 10.0.18363.476, both HDHomeRun Connect tuners appear under Network and are discoverable. HDHomeRun application works great.

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>

<FirstRun_Execution Start_time="11/15/2019 07:10:26" Username="livingroom" Version="1" Origin="Standard FirstRun Sequence">
    <Mandatory_Section t="07:10:26">
        <NavigateTo t="07:10:26" Page="fr.welcome.xml" Nav="Forward" />
        <NavigateTo t="07:10:31" Page="fr.choosesetup.xml" Nav="Forward" />
        <Finishing_FirstRun Total_duration="0:8.283" Finishing_path="executing" />
    </Mandatory_Section>
</FirstRun_Execution>

<FirstRun_Execution Start_time="11/15/2019 07:10:36" Username="livingroom" Version="1" Origin="Settings">
    <FirstRunModuleFinish t="07:10:36" Name="InetXn" Result="Not set up" Duration="1061823310:36.820" State="Skipped" />
    <NetworkTunerDiscoveryStart t="07:10:36">11/15/2019 07:10:36</NetworkTunerDiscoveryStart>
    <NetworkTunerHelper t="07:10:38">CheckForNewTuners - Wait on the current discovery for 45000 milisecs</NetworkTunerHelper>
    <NetworkTunerHelper t="07:10:38">WaitForNetworkTunerSearchHandler - Wait started</NetworkTunerHelper>
    <NetworkTunerHelper t="07:10:38">WaitForNetworkTunerSearchHandler - Wait returned true</NetworkTunerHelper>
    <NetworkTunerDiscoveryEnd t="07:10:38">11/15/2019 07:10:38</NetworkTunerDiscoveryEnd>
    <LocationTvSignalStartNoRecorders t="07:10:38" />
    <LocationTvSignalStartNoRecorders t="07:10:38" />
    <Finishing_FirstRun Total_duration="0:1.332" Finishing_path="cancelling" />
</FirstRun_Execution>
This worked on the same machine running Win7, I did a clean install of Win10.

Reinstall/reboot WMC and HDH drivers many times to no avail. Firewall is off.

Can you think of anything else I can try? Trying to run TV Signal Setup after a clean install of WMC v13 or v8.8.2.

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#6

Post by sdowney717 » Fri Nov 15, 2019 11:55 pm

Stick with 1903 as it works with 8.8.4, and wait for the programmers to test and fix it for version 1909.
You can lock down updates with this
https://greatis.com/stopupdates10/

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#7

Post by technodevotee » Sat Nov 16, 2019 8:50 am

I don't know if this at all relevant to the issues with WMC on Windows 10 1909 not seeing HDHR tuners but it might be worth a try.

A user on MDL says that, while V8.8.4 won't find his tuners, V13 works as long as he uses the old version of PlayReady.

He is using Windows 8.1 and It seems like he has been through the wringer trying to get his system to work - sound familiar?

Thread here https://forums.mydigitallife.net/thread ... st-1560216

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#8

Post by 1ST1 » Sun Nov 17, 2019 7:32 pm

I like just to confirm, that WMC still works fine after update to 1909.

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#9

Post by johnsconley » Sun Nov 17, 2019 7:52 pm

I can't get WMC to load. I get this error from command prompt
Prepare...

Install DISM packages...

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 10.0.18362.1

Image Version: 10.0.18363.476

Processing 1 of 1 - Adding package Microsoft-Windows-MediaCenter-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.3.9600.16384
[==========================100.0%==========================]

Error: 0x800f081e

The specified package is not applicable to this image.

The DISM log file can be found at C:\WINDOWS\Logs\DISM\dism.log


Installing package failed, reverting...

You may reboot and try again
refer to C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log to find error details

Press any key to exit.
I have the CBS.log and the DISM.log files as well but I don't understand the issues involved.
Thanks J

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#10

Post by sdowney717 » Mon Nov 18, 2019 12:10 am

uninstall wmc 8.8.4, uninstaller is in the folder. Then try setting it up again.
Did you have it working on 1903, upgrade to 1909 and then it fails to load? Or what?

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#11

Post by technodevotee » Mon Nov 18, 2019 1:55 am

@johnsconley
that must be an old version you are trying to install because it is using DISM. The latest versions don't use DISM because it can't be used on anything after 1803 so try installing V8.8.4.

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#12

Post by Pepa » Mon Nov 18, 2019 11:42 am

I have WMC-V8.8.4 in Windows 10 1909 with TBS6205 card. DVB-T Terrestrial is OK. However, the transition to DVB-T2 (HEVC) begins here. Unfortunately, WMC cannot find DVB-T2 channels when tuning TV channels. In the TBS software, the channels are tuned correctly. Did any of you have the same problem?

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#13

Post by johnsconley » Mon Nov 18, 2019 3:15 pm

technodevotee wrote: Mon Nov 18, 2019 1:55 am @johnsconley
that must be an old version you are trying to install because it is using DISM. The latest versions don't use DISM because it can't be used on anything after 1803 so try installing V8.8.4.
Thanks! I love it when an install go-off without warning or errors.
Running WMC config right now. :D

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#14

Post by 1ST1 » Mon Nov 18, 2019 6:23 pm

Pepa wrote: Mon Nov 18, 2019 11:42 am I have WMC-V8.8.4 in Windows 10 1909 with TBS6205 card. DVB-T Terrestrial is OK. However, the transition to DVB-T2 (HEVC) begins here. Unfortunately, WMC cannot find DVB-T2 channels when tuning TV channels. In the TBS software, the channels are tuned correctly. Did any of you have the same problem?
WIth the transition from DVBS to DVBS2 it was the same, I think that was the Windows XP/Vista era when this happened here. Only next WMC version which came with the next windows version fixed that. So I think there is no hope for WMC to support DVBT2 as soon as MS would open WMC sourcecode to public and let a community work on it.

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#15

Post by technodevotee » Tue Nov 19, 2019 3:56 am

Pepa wrote: Mon Nov 18, 2019 11:42 am I have WMC-V8.8.4 in Windows 10 1909 with TBS6205 card. DVB-T Terrestrial is OK. However, the transition to DVB-T2 (HEVC) begins here. Unfortunately, WMC cannot find DVB-T2 channels when tuning TV channels. In the TBS software, the channels are tuned correctly. Did any of you have the same problem?
I read somewhere (MDL?) that WMC works with HEVC using Shark's codecs but I've never used them.

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#16

Post by jazz_dude » Tue Nov 19, 2019 8:07 pm

Pepa wrote: Mon Nov 18, 2019 11:42 am I have WMC-V8.8.4 in Windows 10 1909 with TBS6205 card. DVB-T Terrestrial is OK. However, the transition to DVB-T2 (HEVC) begins here. Unfortunately, WMC cannot find DVB-T2 channels when tuning TV channels. In the TBS software, the channels are tuned correctly. Did any of you have the same problem?
re TBS 6205 - I have 2 of these quad tuners and they work great (in UK) for SD and HD, but they have one design fault IMHO. My aerial feed is regular co-ax which needs the supplied screw fitting adaptor. This combined with the co-ax plug and cable works as a pretty effective lever. This has resulted in both input sockets coming adrift due to moving the 2 pcs for maintenance etc. It's a pity the TBS 6205 doesn't have 'sunken' flush mounted co-ax sockets.

My 2 cards are still working, but it's only a matter of time until they fail - not due to chips or circuitboard but to something as mundane as the connections.

Just a heads-up, as they say.

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#17

Post by Pepa » Wed Nov 20, 2019 7:46 pm

technodevotee wrote: Tue Nov 19, 2019 3:56 am
Pepa wrote: Mon Nov 18, 2019 11:42 am I have WMC-V8.8.4 in Windows 10 1909 with TBS6205 card. DVB-T Terrestrial is OK. However, the transition to DVB-T2 (HEVC) begins here. Unfortunately, WMC cannot find DVB-T2 channels when tuning TV channels. In the TBS software, the channels are tuned correctly. Did any of you have the same problem?
I read somewhere (MDL?) that WMC works with HEVC using Shark's codecs but I've never used them.
I also tried Shark-codecs, unsuccessfully. The problem is probably not in the codec but in that WMC tunes DVB-T priority and does not continue. I hope that in our country (Czech Republic) completely switch off DVB-T, WMC tunes DVB-T2. I have to wait a few months to try.

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#18

Post by technodevotee » Wed Nov 20, 2019 10:55 pm

Do you know if the frequencies changed when the HD channels come on air? If so, the WMC setup data won't know about them. It doesn't do blind tuning and I'm not sure there is a way to tell it about them.

Someone in the Netherlands had a similar problem recently but I don't know whether they ever found a way round it.

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#19

Post by Pepa » Thu Nov 21, 2019 4:59 pm

Now I have verified that WMC is also tuning to the new frequency, because it tunes the radio channels located in the multiplex in to the same new frequency along with the DVB-T2 TV channels, but DVB-T2 does not tuning.

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#20

Post by o2cats » Sun Nov 24, 2019 2:53 am

I had not tried WMC on Windows 10, since back in 2016. I quit after the program was removed a couple times, since Windows 7 was still running strong. I started doing some testing of a program garyan2 is developing replacing the MS/Rovi guide, and thought it should be tested on the Windows 10 version. I have to give a big thankyou to techodevotee for his excellent documentation. I had a few problems, but they were all my own making. I thought I have have to come back to the forum for help. By reading his included documention, I found the aswers were are there, clearly lay out. I am on the 1909 update, and everything appears to be working correctly.

I plan to stick with Windows 7 for my active HTPC systems, but will continue to apply any new on a Windows 10 version. I am going to allow updates, to see when it breaks. I will keep backup, up to date, so I can go back, but will be more likely to re-install once a version allows.

Thanks again to the people in this forum, especially techodevotee, for continuing to invest their time, and expertise, to the benefit so many.

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