i bought the harmony 659 remote and it doesn't come with a ir receiver. i bought the microsoft mce remote (should get it in a few days).
my question is , will the harmony remote work with the microsoft IR receiver?
if not, what receiver should i buy to work my 659 harmony with my computer.
and further more , how can i get my harmony to be able to turn my puter on and off. my IR receiver is usb.
any help is greatly appreciated.
thanks
plastikman

You should be able to use the microsoft receiver with the 659.

The MCE codes are in the harmony database. Try them

...will the harmony remote work with the microsoft IR receiver?
Since you will be programming the Harmony remote to send out the same signals as the MCE remote, the receiver will not know the difference and it should work.

how can i get my harmony to be able to turn my puter on and off. my IR receiver is usb.
I think you can get it to go to sleep and wake from sleep using that receiver. You can check the HTPC forum for various ways. It may require changing the sleep mode in BIOS and changing jumpers on the motherboard to power the USB port in sleep mode. There's probably a way to turn off the computer using either Girder or some way to script a shutdown on receiving a signal from the remote. However, turning on from complete power off would require some hardware change. For example, the ir receiver I have is an internal receiver that has connection between the power supply and the power button on the case and emulates a press of the power button with the remote, so it can be powered on and off like I'm pressing the power button. USB receiver can't do that since it's not powered (or at least not operating) when the computer is off. Actually, you may not want that anyway since the computer can wake itself up to record TV if it is only sleeping, and not powered down.

thanks for the info guys, i think i might go the sleep -wake- sleep route as u suggested.
i do have a pvr and will probably leave the htpc running most of the time.
the only reason i wanted to shut the puter down completely is because i notice when its on , my HD over the air signals don't come in when watching regular tv. the analogue come in, crappy i might add. but the digital signals (2.1 eg.) i get an error with the reception.

When you put a windows computer to sleep it will still provide power to the USB ports.

So no change required there.