Windows Media Center Restore and Protected Content

No one has come up with one because there is no solution. It's one of the biggest issues to using WMC for protected content. Seems hard to believe but if you make changes to the OS you will lost your ability to watch the protected content.

I'm planning on a new build and have been buying parts, and prior to the rebuild, I'm trying to get through all my protected content. Sucks but that's the way it is.

I think a full image should work if it's same hardware, but only for a limited time. the encryption keys are regenerated every so often I believe.

Here is what I do. I don't know if you use Media Center Extenders or not. I have 2 of the old Linksys extenders. They have analog component and composite video out. I connect the extender to a computer capture card on another computer and then play and cap the video off of the extender. The file is then saved as DRM free. You can likely use HD-PVR (hauppage) to do the same as a cap device. It takes a while, just because you have to go through each file in real time. But you can set up a few to capture overnight while you sleep and then they'll be available later as files that you can do what you want with them. It's not elegant but it works.