Issue with Volume and Mute in Media Center

[Dragget]

I'm having some trouble getting my MCE remote to work properly in Media Center. I recently picked up a Tripp Lite Keyspan ER-V2 RF Remote and hooked it up to my system. On my HTPC, I have two accounts: one "Administrator" account that I use when I need to do maintenance on the machine and one "Standard User" account that is used to run WMC. After I created the standard account (DVR) during my initial setup of the HTPC, I modified the registry to replace the default shell with ehshell.exe (WMC) so that it would boot straight into WMC on startup. In order to get this done, I had to add a key named "Policies" under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies. Under this new key, I created a string value called Shell and added the string "C:\Windows\eHome\ehshell.exe /mediamode". Everything was working fine, as far as I could tell, but when I attached this new remote, I noticed that while it worked perfectly when logged into my administrator account, when logged into the standard account, the volume up/down and mute keys weren't working. While troubleshooting this, I needed to access explorer.exe from the standard account, so I used CTRL-ALT-DEL to get the task manager up, then used the "Run" command to launch explorer.exe so I could access the start screen and check some settings. As a result, I discovered that when explorer.exe is running, the remote works fine in the standard user account as well, but when it boots straight into WMC, volume and mute are non-functional. Is there some way to get these working without having to have the start screen/menu running?

Note: I don't honestly think it's actually an issue with the remote per se, as when the controls aren't working, I can't adjust the volume or mute the audio using the onscreen controls either.

[richard1980]

Volume control is not available unless explorer.exe is running. You can launch explorer.exe behind WMC via a scheduled task that runs at user logon.

[Dragget]

So is that a Windows 8 thing then? I set my parents' HTPC up for them a couple years ago running Win7 and they have the same type of account where it boots straight into WMC but their MCE remote works fine. At any rate, thanks for the heads up.

[richard1980]

Even in Windows 7, volume control does not work unless explorer.exe is running. Unlike WMC in Windows 8, WMC in Windows 7 includes an option to start WMC when Windows starts. Enabling that option does not change the shell...explorer.exe runs as the shell, and ehshell.exe runs as a startup program. My guess is that's the option you used for your parents' system.

[DavidinCT]

Correct, Explorer needs to be running to access the volume commands. Also to note, running WMC as the shell in windows, a lot of 3rd party apps NEED explorer to run, so some Blu-ray software and other programs wont even run when running as the shell.

Does the same exact thing in Windows 7. I love this mode changing the shell as WMC loads a LOT faster than explorer does and keeps the desktop hidden if someone exits WMC but, the 3rd part apps would be a big problem for a lot of users (WMC based programs).

I set this up for clients like this when I was building custom machines, as their kids would close WMC and browse the web on the TV, that caused a nightmare of support issues (yes, I charged on every call about this, till I did this for them)

Even in Windows 7, volume control does not work unless explorer.exe is running. Unlike WMC in Windows 8, WMC in Windows 7 includes an option to start WMC when Windows starts. Enabling that option does not change the shell...explorer.exe runs as the shell, and ehshell.exe runs as a startup program. My guess is that's the option you used for your parents' system.

When you select the option to "start WMC with Windows" it just adds something to RUN in the registry under the current user.

Any user can go to "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run"

and add %systemroot%\ehome\ehshell.exe /mediamode

This would do the SAME exact thing as that little check box in WIndows 7...

[Dragget]

Thanks again for all the tips, folks. I added a task like richard1980 suggested, set it to run at logon with a 30sec delay, then went back into the registry and added the /nostartupanimation parameter to my ehshell.exe command line. Now it fires up a little faster than before and the volume/mute controls work. Guess I just have to live with having explorer running.