Windows 7 media center crashing

[Manbatius]

HI all,

Having issues with my htpc,

If I select video library in windows media center, it crashes, says its trying to find a solution, restarts and same thing happens.

So far I have Turned media center off in features, rebooted, turned back on rebooted.

Reinstalled drivers (majority)

Ran mem test to test for a memory issue.

Really not sure what to do now ! maybe reinstall w7 is my only option.

Its windows 7 32 bit if that helps

 

[Manbatius]

Update:

Windows 7 resintalled
gfx / tv card / blu ray drive all left unplugged.

movie library crashes as soon as opened, tried rebuilding same issue.

Looks like i may have to ditch media center, perhaps xbmc or something,it's useless as a htpc without being able to watch films !

 

[Vimes]

Not sure what is going wrong with your library, could be something to do with the naming of some of your material..? You could have tried leaving the library empty and then add a few at a time to see if the problem resolves..?

Then again I have just moved from Media Portal to the newly released XBMC and I would not want to use much else now after getting it to work with my MCE remote. Then again it also works with my Android phone / tablet.!

I also tried the live XBMCbuntu and that went remarkably well, albeit I have Windows 7x64 for my HTPC. The thing about the live disc is that you could try it out from the disc, or stick in my case, without needing to install it.

 

[Manbatius]

I think my main issue with xbmc is my tv card is nto compatible with it.

Which would be fine, until the digital switchover.

I am currently rebuilding indexing options as that can cause a problem apparently.

Like you suggest I suspect it it an issue with my 2tb hdd as oppose to my windows 7 install.

I may try live cd or installing xbmc in windows, though i do like the sound of XBMCbuntu!

 

[Vimes]

The best experience that I had when I used a TV card was with WMC. However it was not the best for the rest of my media like TV shows and films.
The next best was with Media Portal, if I wanted to keep using the TV card. But that was a bit of a pain with codecs, micro stuttering etc etc etc.
But the TV aspect was the least successful part of my HTPC experience.
I even bought the DVB Viewer to use the TV aspect and I had some success with that.

In the end I bought a standalone cheap (less than £40 DVB T2) HD freeview box and I can record all the channels onto a USB stick or external HD. It seems to work a treat. A fully populated EPG and uses much less power than my HTPC.

That allowed me to be no longer influenced by the need of trying to make the TV aspect integral to the HTPC software and thus XBMC was tried and tested.

I might be tempted to now pop my TV card (DVB S2) back in as the more I learn about XBMC the more I realise that it just might work. However with the standalone box I have no longer got a compelling need.

If you do want to try the live CD then grab a copy of XBMCbuntu 11.0 – x-swat as that has the very latest AMD / NVidia drivers built in.