MSFT disables automatically booting into Media Center in Windows 8

Nothing stopping you from building a Windows 7 HTPC

Or, you know... putting a shortcut in the startup folder?

Kind of what I was thinking.. a simple registry hack to start it automatically should be really easy

I think it's sad that what we have now is as good as it's going to get. No more speculation or "wish lists" for the next version of WMC.
I can also see my cable provider (TWC) going copy never in the next year or so, which sucks.

Seems that Microsoft is all over stopping people from circumventing Bob+2. The engineering and sales staff in Redmond is really wanting to kill off the company. First the pseudo tablet/notebook, now the dying Windows interface. Whats next, a office suite that no longer does what it is supposed to, and refuses to allow you to make changes to your documents, without having to go through fifteen steps on the ribbon, or paying a fee to pull them up.

It's completely clear to me that MS considers XBOX it's media center and think there's really no reason to have it on a PC. For 99% of the population they're probably right.

Microsoft is clearly on a path to remove WMC from future Windows operating systems, so I am planning to keep my Windows 7 HTPC (and Xbox extenders) around for another 3-4 years - which will be about the time I predict HD video streaming will actually be usable, reliable, and will likely have content people (like me) want to watch. WMC has been at the center of my entertainment system since Windows XP Media Center Edition and now to the current HTPC running Windows 7 with 2 analog NTSC tuners, 2 digital OTA tuners and 4 digital cablecard tuners (via Ceton). However, I never considered WMC really "usable" as a general consumer HTPC until Windows 7 when anyone could add a digital cablecard tuner into their HTPC - this is the point where WMC could truly be a replacement to a cable company box or a Tivo. So really, history should consider the "success" or "failure" of WMC starting with Windows 7.

I expect the future of "WMC" to be with Xbox and third parties like Ceton. We'll have to see where Microsoft goes with Xbox and whether we can ever easily add a Ceton digital cablecard tuner and a couple TB of storage to record digital TV and extend those recordings to other Xbox devices.

Boxee development is dead on the PC as well now. They've gone for the appliance market, which is where the money is I suspect.

I think we should all now consider WMC a DEAD product. It likely won't even get mentioned in the Windows 8 marketing rollout. Stick with your 7MC's, because it's the end of the line folks.

What a damn shame... HTPC + Metro interface + Surface would have been a perfect HTPC combo.

They might be getting rid of WMC because it doesn't really fit into Metro's tile interface. What I can see them doing is having an individual program for each that when you back out of still all show on metro. So TV/DVR is a tile, XBMC/Media Browser as a tile, and Music as a tile as well. IMO that would be even better than the WMC interface and could be reproduced on any other of your windows devices. And it'd still be better than any of that computer illiterate crap Apple rolls out.

Copy Never would mean their own DVR cannot copy it either - killing off one of their revenue streams.

So TWC wants to disable the FF function during commercials. Copy Never is an easy way to accomplish that because that is the basic reason for a DVR.

I think the best combo would have been WHS + WMC internals + Extenders (including Metro devices).

Microsoft had/has all the pieces to make a complete home entertainment system - a simple media server with lots of storage and tuners recording/caching and serving out media from several live, time-shifted, or streaming sources to various types of devices that either connect to a TV (i.e. Xbox) or are the visual display (i.e. Surface tablet, Windows Phone, etc.). It is too bad no one at Microsoft ever had the vision to actually put it all together.

Oh well, Ill be hanging onto Win 7 on my htpcs for quite some time without a doubt.


Ill be waiting to see what is developed on Win 8 to provide that functionality. Since MS isn't interested in that market anymore, I hope there are third party groups that pick up the slack. I think there is potential in the Metro UI for a 10' interface, but it will require the right app.

My big worry is if MS isn't offering a cable card tuner solution anymore, who will? Its not cheap to get certified to offer software that uses cablecards, so its not something some small startup could do. MS spent alot in licensing and fees to CableLabs in order to get that functionality.

I never did see where the DVR was being taken I out of WMC. Did I miss something?