Customizing the Vista Media Center Menu

In the new features of Windows Vista RC1, we introduced Microsoft's improvements to Windows Media Center, compared to the previous Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 (Update Rollup 2). The media center integrated in Windows Vista Home Premium or Ultimate has been greatly improved in terms of functionality and ease of operation.

The user interface improvements are first reflected in the redesigned start menu of the Windows Vista Media Center. The new interface is more intuitive and concise. The media center start menu is through the vertical Strips menu and horizontal. The combination of the Tiles approach makes the user's operation easier and easier to use. Among them, the strips that can be scrolled up and down are the top menus of the media center, such as Movies, Music or Pictures + Videos in the following figure. When a certain block item is selected, the function sub-items under the item will appear. ( Tiles ), multiple functional sub-items are arranged in a horizontal manner, where each functional sub-item implements a specific operation, or as an entry point for the corresponding function of the media center, as shown in the following figure.

Secondly, for those who want to add more personalized imprints or extensions to the Media Center Start Menu, Microsoft also offers an easy way (of course, just relative) to get users started on the Media Center. The menu is customized or expanded. In general, users can add two top-level bar items to the media center's default start menu, where each bar can include up to five functional sub-items or feature entries.

Expanding Custom Functions for the Vista Media Center Start Menu

First, create a menu definition file for the application you want to add. For details, see Resources and Descriptions in the Microsoft Media Center SDK.

This file should be in XML format, including the application category, entry, etc. to be added and the corresponding GUID (Globally Unique Identifier). The GUID can be generated by guidgen.exe. It is also important to note that each of these entries must complete a specific task and cannot be repeated. It is assumed here that the created XML file is CostomApp.xml.

to open a command line window as an administrator, the specific method for the Windows Vista Start menu, right-click the command line icon and select "Run as Administrator (Run as administrator)"

Run the following command in the command line window to register the customized menu item:

%windir%\\ehome\ egistermceapp.exe CustomApp.xml

Edit the registry and find "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE" \\Software \\Microsoft \\Windows \\CurrentVersion \\Media Center \\Start Menu \\Applications", under which a primary key named {GUID} is created, where the GUID should match the value in the XML. Then, add the following items under the primary key:

Category (REG_SZ) : Application classification to be added;

OnStartMenu (REG_SZ) : Set to "true" to display in the start menu ;

title (REG_SZ): the title is displayed in the menu;

after the setup is complete, open the media Center start menu, you can see that in addition to the default content, there Our custom menu items.

Deleting the Custom Function in the Start Menu of the Vista Media Center

It should be noted that the default contents such as "Movies", "Music", etc. in the Media Center Start Menu cannot be deleted. You can only delete the custom content added by the above method.

The operation method is quite simple:

Open the command line window as an administrator, the method is the same as above;

Run the following command in the command line window to release the custom function. Binding:

%windir%\\ehome\ egistermceapp.exe /u CustomApp.xml

Edit the registry and delete the related "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \\Software \\Microsoft \\Windows \\CurrentVersion \\Media Center \\ Start Menu \\Applications \\{GUID}", where {GUID} should match the value in CustomApp.xml instead of accidentally deleting other content. Of course, if you want to delete all the custom functions in the Start menu, you can directly delete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \\Software \\Microsoft \\Windows \\CurrentVersion \\Media Center \\Start Menu \\Applications".