Media Center Remote Driver

[nathagt]

So I'm helping a friend get his HTPC set up and not sure what to do on this. He has a USB infrared receiver that came with a Lenovo PC running Windows 7. That same PC also came with a Media Center remote. We plugged that in to the new HTPC (also Windows 7 x64) and the remote works fine. However, if we try to use a different media center remote it will not work. In device manager I do not see the eHome Infrared driver that shows up on my PC. My guess is that the Lenovo receiver has its own driver that's not compatible with other remotes. So here's my question: can I force Windows to use the eHome driver so that it will work with the majority of Media Center remotes? I don't care if the Lenovo remote stops working.

[mdavej]

Even if you could use a different driver, that will not change the IR signals the receiver responds to. That part is hard-coded into the device. It's possible the address is simply different. So you have a couple of options, either learn all the commands from the Lenovo remote onto a universal remote, or change the address in the registry (I don't remember where exactly) until you get a response from your other remote. It's also possible it's using a completely different protocol which won't work with any MCE remote.

Can you post a picture or link to the remote in question?

[nathagt]

Thanks, that's the explanation I was looking for. I left the remote with my friend so I can't post anything now. I'll probably just recommend he buy a standard mce receiver that works with all the remotes.