Windows Update Breaks Windows 7 Media Center Extender

This is a follow-up to my post regarding restoring Windows 7 Media Center after having problems with a couple of patches from Microsoft.
After restoring the WMC7 PC, most functions worked correctly, with the exception of:

1) TV Archive (it was working but failed on every file due to incorrect file permissions)
2) WHS 2011 did not longer see the restored WMC7 PC as a client, therefore automatic backups did not work, and the Lauchpad indicated that the WHS 2011 server was offline (it was not)
3) Some files, notably Recorded TV files, were no longer accessible from the WMC7 PC or from Extenders.

All of these issues were solved by performing the following steps:

1) Uninstall and then re-install the Extenders
2) Uninstall and then re-install the WHS 2011 connector software on the restored WMC7 PC
3) Make sure … Read More »

Windows Update Breaks Windows 7 Media Center Extender

The second Tuesday of the month has passed and Microsoft released another round of updates, fixing some critical vulnerabilities.

A summary of the July 9, 2013 update can be found here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin/ms13-jul

It turned out that my Windows 7 64-bit WMC (Windows Media Center) PC had 17 updates available.  I applied all the updates, rebooting as required, and everything seemed to be running fine.

Unfortunately, I found that two of the patches had adverse effects on my WMC (Windows Media Center) Extenders.  Specifically, the Extenders (Xbox 360) would boot into Media Center and then report a “Connection Failure” , reboot into Media Center, report a Connection Failure, etc,  thus rendering them unusable.

After doing a system image restore to return the PC to its pre July 9 patch state (I have been down this road before), I … Read More »