Microsoft killed off the much-loved Windows Media Center years ago, which is bad enough for home theater PC enthusiasts. But it gets worse: you’ve also got a now-useless MCE remote gathering dust somewhere…or do you?
Get that MCE remote out of the drawer, because it’s still useful. If you’ve already found an alternative to Windows Media Center, a free piece of software called Advanced MCE Remote Mapper Tool lets you remap the buttons on your remote to keys or keyboard shortcuts. This means you can use the remote to control any media center software, or even to browse your start menu and launch apps.
You’ll be controlling your media center PC from your couch, as the TV gods intended, in no time.
This program works with RC6 remotes, so if you see that on your remote somewhere, you’re good to go. Otherwise, plug the receiver into your computer, head to “Device Manager”, then look under “Universal serial bus controllers”, which lists all connected USB devices.
If your infrared reciever shows up as an “eHome Infarared Receiver”, as shown above, your remote will work. Re-map away! If your remote isn’t supported, you might be disappointed, but you’re not out of luck: you could use Flirc to control any media center using any remote. You’ll need a $20 dongle, but it’s really easy to set up.
How to Remap Your MCE Remote Buttons
You can download Advanced MCE Remote Mapper Tool on the Kodi forum (though the app works for more than just Kodi). This portable Windows program lets anyone re-map all the buttons on their RC6 remotes to keys on the keyboard or keystrokes. Just download the EXE file and run it–you can store the executable anywhere you like, including “C:Remote Mapper” if like.
Media Player Remote App
The “Key” dropdown works for numbers, letters, and other keys; the checkboxes let you add modifiers like Control, Shift, Alt, and the Windows key. The “Key Stroke” column will show you the complete combination of keys you’ve selected. You can also assign buttons to act like the system-wide “Multimedia Keys” offered on some keyboards, which in theory should allow you to control almost any media player (though your mileage may vary).
So, to remap keys, just start checking boxes and picking keys from the dropdown for each remote button!
Which Keys You Should Map
Advanced MCE Remote Mapper Tool gives you a lot of freedom, which can be overwhelming. There’s a chance you know exactly which keyboard shortcuts you want to map to which buttons, but if not, here are a few we think everyone will find useful.
- The “Windows” button on the remote to the “Control” and “Esc” keys, which is an alternative shortcut for the “Windows key” on the keyboard. With this you launch the start menu from your couch. Note that simply checking the Windows key won’t work:.
- Direction buttons on the to the arrow keys, so you can explore the start menu, as well as media in your media center application of choice.
- The “OK” button on the remote to the “Enter” key, so you can open things in the start menu or your media center application of choice.
- The “Play” button to the spacebar, so you can pause or play media in basically any program ever.
- The “Back” button on the remote to the “Backspace” key, so you can go back a page in web browsers or up a level in media center applications like Kodi or Plex.
This is just a start, of course: you can assign all sorts of specific things. Which shortcuts you’ll want depends on what media center program you tend to use on your computer, because they often use different keyboard shortcuts. Here are a few resources to check out for various programs:
Whatever your media center application of choice may be, there’s a bunch of keyboard shortcuts you can use to control it, meaning with enough time you can set up a compatible MCE remote to control any program.
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When You’re Done: Write Changes to the Registry Restart Your Computer
When you’re done assigning keys, click the “Apply To Registry” button in order to apply your settings to the system. Then restart your computer for the changes to take affect.
Because Advanced MCE Remote Remapper re-assigns keys using the Windows Registry, you don’t need any software running in the background for your remote to work–not even Advanced MCE Remote Remapper. You only need to open it to change the configuration.
Unfortunately, there’s a downside to this: you can’t really assign keys on the fly. Because you have to restart every time you make a change, it can be time consuming to try out new shortcuts or combinations. You’ll need to do some trial and error to get things just right, but it’s worth it.
If you decide to change things later, be sure to click “Load From Registry” when you first launch the remapper. This will load the keys you’ve already set up, so you don’t need to start re-mapping from scratch every time.
There’s something really satisfying about making a seemingly useless piece of hardware you already own useful again. Anyone concerned about the security implications of letting a program modify their registry can check out the source code on GitHub. Alternatively, you can learn to re-map the remote manually, but that’s going to take a lot more effort on your part.
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There are a couple of new features in Windows 7 that help you liberate the multimedia content from your PC and stream it to other devices around your home. You can even stream to your laptop no matter where you are in the world – all you need is an internet connection to do so. The two features that enable these capabilities are “Play to” and “Remote Media Streaming.” Since they both do similar things, you may be confused as to how to turn each feature on or configure its settings. But the steps are actually quite simple, just follow the instructions below.
PLAY TO
“Play to” is the feature that lets you stream media like music, photos, and videos from your Windows 7 PC to other devices connected to your home network. These can include audio/video systems, other PCs, your Xbox 360, and more. (The Digital Lifestyle blog started a wiki of supported devices – feel free to add to it!)
PLAY TO
“Play to” is the feature that lets you stream media like music, photos, and videos from your Windows 7 PC to other devices connected to your home network. These can include audio/video systems, other PCs, your Xbox 360, and more. (The Digital Lifestyle blog started a wiki of supported devices – feel free to add to it!)
The “Play to” feature is not enabled by default – you have to switch it on.
Here’s how:
- Before you can use “Play to” you have to turn on Media Streaming. Launch Windows Media Player and make sure it’s displaying your library, not playing a file.
- Click the “Stream” button at the top and then click “Turn on Media Streaming”
- In the window that appears, click the “turn on media streaming” button and click “OK”
- Once enabled, you can access “More streaming options” from WMP’s “Stream” menu where you can configure options like the media library’s name, which devices to show, and which devices are allowed to access your shared media.
- If adding other Windows 7 PCs, you’ll need to go to the destination PC and select “Allow Remote Control of My Player” from the “Stream” menu in order for them to show up in the “Play to” list.
- Now that you have the other devices on your network configured to receive media, you can go back to your WMP and click on the “Play” tab at top-right. Look for this button:
- Click the button and in the window that appears, choose the device on your network you want to send the media to.
Scp 001 prototype. To see “Play to” in action, check out this great demo from the Windows 7 launch in New York City.
REMOTE MEDIA STREAMING
Remote Media Streaming is the feature that lets you stream media from your Windows 7 PC to your own internet-connected PC, even when you’re outside your home network.
Here’s how to set this up:
- If you haven’t already done so, you need to turn on Media Streaming as described in step #1 above.
- In WMP, click on the “Stream” menu and choose “Allow Internet Access to Home Media”
- For security purposes, you’ll now need to configure an online ID which will be used to access your media from the internet. In the window that appears, click on “Link an online ID”.
- On the next screen, choose “add an online ID provider” to link an online ID to your Windows account:
- You’ll be directed to a webpage where you can download the Windows Live ID sign-in assistant in either the 34 or 64-bit version. Download the appropriate version for your PC and then click the .msi file to install it.
- Install the software, first accepting the license agreement, then click “Next” and “Finish.” (You’ll also need to click “Yes” on the User Account Control dialog box that appears)
- When installation is complete, return to the “Link online ID” window and click on the “WindowsLiveID” provider that now appears in the list:
- Click on the “Link online ID” hyperlink and fill in your Windows Live ID info in the box that appears. You’ll now be signed into Windows Live.
- After signing in is complete, return to the window and click “OK” to close it.
- Now you can return to the “Stream” menu in Windows Media Player and continue setting up Internet access to your media. Again, click on “Stream” and choose “Allow Internet Access to Home Media”
- Click on “Allow Internet access to home media” again in the next window that appears.
- Click “Yes” on the User Account Control (UAC) dialog box when it pops up.
- Click “OK” on the “success” window to finish.
ACCESS YOUR MEDIA LIBRARY OVER THE INTERNET
To access the media library on a home computer from your laptop when you’re traveling, you’ll need to do the following:
- You first have to associate your Windows Live ID on the remote computer in the same way as you did on your home computer (as described above).
- After that’s complete, launch Windows Media Player on your laptop and look for the Player Library for your home computer listed under “Other Libraries” in the navigation pane.
- After clicking on this library, you’ll now have access to the media stored on your home PC. In the background, the WMP software connects to the home computer using SSL and the connection is verified using digital certificates to identify which libraries can be accessed. The experience, however, is simply that where your remote library is shown at the same time as your local one is.