Web Analytics
    Home Basics Windows 7 Windows Vista Windows XP Software Freebies Forums About Subscribe  

Customise Windows 7 Media Center (Part 2)

By rsvr85 on September 11, 2009 0 Comments


Those of you who followed Part 1 of Customise Windows 7 Media Center thanks for reading. I hope you’ve enjoyed W7MC with Media Browser and have had a good chance at playing around with it to suit your tastes.

For those of you who missed out last time, take a look here to catch up on whats been going on!

Let’s dive straight in and carry on from where we left off.

4a. Change The Genre Icon In MB

This will show you how to add an icon to the genres you see in MB.

4 Customise Windows 7 Media Center (Part 2)

All we have to do is mod the ImagesByName folder.

Open up an Explorer Window and navigate to C:\ProgramData\MediaBrowser\ImagesByName.

Create a new folder in ImagesByName called the title of your genre.  Put your genre icon into the folder and name it folder.

04-09-2009 20-15-00

Do this for all of your genre titles and it’ll make browsing through genres much more pleasing!

5. Hide The Default Movie Strip

Now we’ve got our Media Browser strip on the start up menu. You can hide the default movie strip. It can often be confusing for visitors to your home to know which one to go for. Also, now we have Media Browser, there’s not a real need for it anyway, it’s just cluttering up the start menu, so lets hide it.

Run the Hide Strips program downloaded from Part 1. Make sure you open up under the Per User tab.

Uncheck Movies and what ever else you want, hit Save. Then move across to the All Users tab.

13 Customise Windows 7 Media Center (Part 2)

Uncheck the same options as last time. You’ll notice under All Users your custom strip can be seen. Hit Save & Exit when you’re finished.

23 Customise Windows 7 Media Center (Part 2)

6. Change Media Browser Icon in Startup Menu

This is a good one for those of you who aren’t too keen on MB’s default icon.

We’re going to change it to the default movie icon that W7MC displays.  You can of course change the icon to whatever you like.

14 Customise Windows 7 Media Center (Part 2)

First up. Find ehres.dll located at C:\Windows\ehome, when you have found it take ownership of it, make a copy of it on the desktop and rename it ehres BACKUP.dll.

Next is to open ehres.dll with restorator, in the left hand pane navigate to RCData\STARTMENU.QUICKLINK.MOVIES.FOCUS.PNG, you should have the same icon as below.

29 07 200904 41 05 Customise Windows 7 Media Center (Part 2)

Next, is to right click on STARTMENU.QUICKLINK.MOVIES.FOCUS.PNG, go to Extract… > Extract as “STARTMENU.QUICKLINK.MOVIES.FOCUS.PNG” and save the image to desktop.

Next, is to right click on STARTMENU.QUICKLINK.MOVIES.FOCUS.PNG, go to Extract… > Extract as “STARTMENU.QUICKLINK.MOVIES.FOCUS.PNG” and save the image to desktop.

29 07 200904 41 05 1 Customise Windows 7 Media Center (Part 2)

Now we have our default movie image extracted and saved to desktop, navigate to C:\Program Files\MediaBrowser\MediaBrowser

Locate the PNG image called Application and rename it Application BACKUP. Drag the extracted default WMC movie icon from the desktop and into C:\Program Files\MediaBrowser\MediaBrowser and rename it Application.

29 07 200904 41 05 2 Customise Windows 7 Media Center (Part 2)

Open up W7MC and behold your new icon :)

29 07 200904 30 08 Customise Windows 7 Media Center (Part 2)

Customise Windows 7 Media Centre (Part 3)



Looking for something else?


Share/Save/Bookmark

Get free books and software from Windows Guides
www.mintywhite.com