This is why it's not an official release yet.  Report it properly to MS so it (hopefully) gets fixed before it's officially released.

slydog75:

This is why it's not an official release yet.  Report it properly to MS so it (hopefully) gets fixed before it's officially released.

I would gladly do that if I knew how. :) (Ie is there any form or e-mail address publically available? I tried googling since I wanted to submit feedback, but came up empty.)

Also I know it's pre-release software I just wanted to see if it was solvable you know.

When you installed the pre-release or RC SW there was an icon on your desktop, "How to Share Feedback".  If you deleted this icon, it was a short-cut to:

%SystemRoot%\system32\mshta.exe %SystemRoot%\system32\feedback.hta

You might want to check that you still have feedback.hta in your system32 folder.

Otherwise:

Reporting a problem If you encounter a problem in this pre-release version of Windows, please tell us about it. To report a problem, download the problem-reporting tool, which includes a feedback form. We only ask for information we need to understand the problem-- how and where you encountered the problem, for example. Once you have completed the form, you can send it to Microsoft. When downloading the problem-reporting tool, you will be prompted to click either Run or Save. Click Run and the tool will be installed on your computer. When you fill out a report, you can send it right away or save it and send it later.

Tips for how to file a problem report

Here are some things to consider when filing a problem report:

Please file your report as soon as possible after you find a problem. The sooner we hear from you, the sooner we can investigate and try to fix the problem.

Please provide a brief, descriptive title. The title is the first thing we see when we get the report, so a succinct, clear title will help us effectively identify and prioritize the problem.

Please provide enough detail in the description for us to understand the problem. The more detail you can provide, the better.

Please provide the steps we can follow to reproduce the problem. Any incorrect or missing steps can prevent us from being able to reproduce and address the problem.

If you have any supplemental files, screen shots, etc., that will help us investigate the problem, please attach those to your report. Seeing a picture can sometimes help us identify the problem more quickly.

And of course, there is always the forums at http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=1992&SiteID=17.

Todd

AntonNilsson - I would like to know more about your experience. Have you filed an offical bug on you issue?

When you say "when they GUI is supposed to show up I get an error message" do you mean that Media Center Blue screen begins to launch and then you get an error?

What is the exact error message you are getting?

What is the make and model of the Media Center PC?

What network card is installed on the Media Center PC?

 

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This posting is provided "as is" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

One more question. You said you saw other reports of this issue. Can you please point me to them too?

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This posting is provided "as is" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Hi Jenelle,
I am able to connect using a xbox 360 as a media center extender, but under SP1 RC the mcx1 ehshell.exe will hang. This is on vista ultimate x64. As the eshell.exe is hung there is no reporting to the event viewer that is useful. From the xbox side the problem manifest in the video output just hanging. the interface tries to continue for a bit and you can hit the fast forward and rewind and you can see it moving up and down the progress bar at the bottom, but the video remains hung. If you shutdown the 360 and restart it will connect but when you playback it will say there are no codecs available to handle the file format. It's interesting to note that the original ehshell.exe does not go away and a new one is spawned. This appears at first blush to be a problem with the mpeg2 video decoder. Were there significant changes made in sp1 to the decoder?

I'd love to give you exact details but am unwilling to reinstall SP1 to find out, my family relies on the mce and mce extender remaining UP.
The media center pc I am using is homegrown so this is likely not useful information to you.

The network card is Broadcom netxtreme gigabit ethernet adapter. (which could be part of the problem, I have had problems with broadcom in the past)

I'd be interested to know also, what kind of QA is microsoft doing in relation to the 360 extenders? This is the second time I have had major problems with Vista and MCX. The first time it was onecare trying to send popups to the terminal service session on the extender. I look forward to hearing from you, please don't let MS drop the ball with this functionality.

stephenv - Are you using taskmgr or other service monitoring tool to determine that ehshell.exe is hanging? Is this hang only occuring on the Extender or does is happen on the Media Center PC too?

I have heard of issues with the Broadcom netxtreme gigabit ethernet adapter but the reports were of slow menu naviagation rather than complete hangs. I would be courios to know the driver version of the adapter currently running to see if there was an update in the service pack.

I am not aware of changes made to the decoder that would cause what you are describing.

I can assure you our teams QA coverage is exstensive. I am sorry to hear this is your second issue with Extenders.

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This posting is provided "as is" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Hi, sorry for not getting back earlier. Apparently the forum notification wasn't working properly for me.

Here's as detailed as I can get.

Without Vista SP1 everything works beautifully.
Once I install SP1 the connection process will always stop at "Connecting to extender" in the MCE interface on my computer (The last step that is).
On my computer it will just stay at the last step indefinately until I cancel it but on my 360 I will see the "connecting" screen first for a few seconds and then I get a blue screen telling me:
"The Xbox 360 was unable to prepare a connection to the Windows Vista Media Center-based PC. Restart your Xbox 360 and try again."

Of course I've tried to restart both the computer and the 360 to no avail.
I've also tried the following: clearing out the MCE certificate as per instructions in the MS Knowledgebase. Repairing my internet connection. Connecting the 360 to the PC directly (without the router, both with a straight and a crossed network cable). Deleting all presence of the MCE accounts from both the PC and 360. Uninstalling/re-installing the extender driver etc.

Along with various other tips from people around the web (some pretty crazy ones as well ;) )

My computer is a Fujitsu Siemens Amilo PA 1538. It has a nVidia integrated ethernet controller. I connect through a D-Link DIR-100. (Note that the computer and router are European versions, if I'm not mistaken they go under different names in the US.)
The computer does not have any tuner whatsoever (nor video in capabilities)

Here are some of the error codes I have recieved through the process:
0x800704d4. (Couldn't send Media Center software to the extender.)

 -209. (The installation failed with error code 209)

0x800403cb.(Could not exchange certificates with the device)

109 (GUI process was not terminated properly)

ERROR: SqmApiWrapper.TimerRecord failed; Win32 GetLastError returned 10000105
DefaultDomain
Media Center Guide

I don't think any of these errors have much to do with it though since the one below is the only one that is persistant: (Ie happens every time I try to create the connection, the ones above have happened once or twice only when I check through the error logs)

here's the one that I think is the issue though:

ERROR: SqmApiWrapper.TimerAccumulate failed; Win32 GetLastError returned 10000105
DefaultDomain
Media Center Guide

I googled the error above and found some hints about deleting recording schedueles and the content of some folder on the computer and I did so but the problem persists.

If I uninstall SP1 everything starts working just fine again. Re-install SP1 (doesn't matter if it's beta RC or the latest refresh) and it stops working again.

I'm not running any security/firewall/antivirus/adware software (though I've checked for viruses and adware and then uninstalled such apps) whatsoever and I've disabled UAC for what it's worth. I've also tried re-installing windows.

I'm starting to worry about this problem persisting in the final version of SP1. :(

About other people reporting the problem I was mainly referring to a blog entry with a discussion thread about the same issue but right now I can't seem to find it again. :/

PS. personally I wouldn't really care about the issue as the extender functionality is so outdated by now without support for MPEG4 etc but since I can't play MPEG2 files in the dashboard I really "need" extender functionality.

UPDATE: I also have a problem with the "WPD FileSystem Volume Driver". It stops working (cannot initialize driver) when SP1 is installed.
Same problem as decribed here:
http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2746837&SiteID=17
I assume it has nothing to do with the media center extender but I thought I'd bring it up anyways.
pretty annoying bug since I cannot use my built in cardreader when SP1 is installed. Luckily for me though, unlike the guy in that thread, uninstalling SP1 makes it work just fine again for me.

Just wanted to add that I have now tried RC1 Refresh2 and the same problem is still present.

Hey! I too was getting the
"ERROR: SqmApiWrapper.TimerAccumulate failed; Win32 GetLastError returned 10000105"
I didn't mention this because,
According to this article its benign:
http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/thread/231808.aspx

I am not sure that it is as benign as the article suggested.

3 times I reported this to Microsoft through the Connect program.

 

The First time I went back and forth with someone there and the call was closed without resolution. (Oct 18th 2007)

The Second time the guy responding to the feedbacks said that the problem was fixed in later builds. (Dec  10th 2007

Third feedback what was logged from RC1 Refresh 2 was submitted on the 25th and HASN'T EVEN BEEN ADDRESSED YET.   Probably won't be either since it's RTM now and they use other means to gather errors.

 

Bravo MS.  Way to prove the system works.

 

The issue here is that my family uses MCE and the Extender functionality a lot.   This bug is a deal-breaker for me and I can't run SP1 until this is resolved.

 

Just tried SP1 RTM (which seems to be identical to RC1 Refresh 2) and of course, the problem is still present.

"Hopefully" more people will experience this problem when SP1 final is public.

Problem is: this problem doesn't cause any problem report so I think most people will just trod along trying to fix it themselves rather than calling Microsoft.

Just tried re-installing Vista and then installing SP1 RTM on top of it: Same thing: no go "Xbox 360 was unable to connect".

Uninstalled SP1 and got them connected, worked fine. Re-installed SP1 and now it won't work again.

(Also, unrelated to Media Center but SP1 RTM still breaks the "Microsoft WPD FileSystem Volume Driver" rendering my built in cardreader useless.)

After installing SP1 RTM which I legally obtained via the CONNET site, I too cannot use any extenders in my home.  I even unistalled them from Vista Ultimate and added the extenders back in.  I get them to load the 'extender' experience, but then it becomes unresponsive to remote control, xbox 360 wireless controller, wired controller, Guitar Hero3 controller, Scene It controller (get it NO CONTROL regardless of type will work). 

I do not see any errors via the event viewer related to problems.  All hardware is working on the Vista Ultimate machine after the SP1 RTM install.  TV works fine via the local Vista console.

I guess I will be unistalling SP1 RTM and seeing if my experience is restore.

I did not experience this will any of the SP1 RC builds.  They all worked fine.  SP1 RTM appears to be the issue.

Regards,

Michael

 

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Regards,
Michael