Windows Media Center is really a fantastic tool. It is a built in DVR, with all the functionality that you expect from your local cable company. And, by adding extenders, you can use your HTPC, using Windows Media Center, to provide both programming and DVR functionality to multiple TVs, thus eliminating the need for multiple DVR’s or set top boxes.

So why doesn’t everybody do it? Well, in my opinion, the answer is obvious. It’s because it’s Windows, with all of the maintenance that’s required to keep the Windows operating system alive and well.

Having had a FIOS DVR for years now, I can tell you that there will is very little user maintenance required with this dedicated set-top box DVR. Yeah, sure, there have been a few glitches here and there. I’ve had to reboot the box a few times, and there was one time I had to call technical support because it didn’t seem to be able to connect (they had to reset the box over the network, but they did get it to work).  Updates and upgrades are done automatically, usually in the middle the night, and, so far, haven’t required user intervention, other than a reboot here and there.

In reviewing some of the reviews for TiVo, I read a similar story. There are a few connection issues here and there. People may have problems especially if they want to upgrade their hard drives.  But they are relatively trouble free.

If there were HTPC computers readily available on the market that ran out of the box at a fairly low price then perhaps it would be an issue, but there are not.  The perception that I have observed about DVR’s is that people don’t want them to look like a computer in their A/V setup, they want something that looks and sounds like a DVR.  This is not readily available on the market

So that means building a new computer to be a Windows HTPC

And Windows is Windows. By that I mean, it is a full operating system, capable of operating in innumerable kinds of software and devices. The versatility of Windows is awesome, but the price for that versatility is maintenance and upkeep. In fairness, I believe most of the blame should not be on Microsoft as most of the updates are security updates required to patch holes in vulnerabilities as they are discovered.  There are so many viruses, malware, rootkits, and the like that have to be dealt with both in installation and maintenance.  That is the fault of the writers and perpetrators of the malware, viruses, and rootkits.

I am in the process of setting up an HTPC for use as a DVR.  It has an AMD CPU with ASRock motherboard.  I can’t tell you how many blue screens I’ve had.  Oh, it worked fine initially.  As as soon as I updated the BIOS and the drivers I opened up Windows media center, connected it to the extender, and both the computer and the extender worked flawlessly providing programming and DVR services to two screens for a day and a half.  Updating the BIOS is something that has to be done on cable box DVR’s and TiVo’s, so that was no issue.

But, the next thing that happened was terrible.  The initial setting for Windows is to automatically download and install updates. And, since it’s been a while since I’ve built one of these boxes, I forgot about that. So, lo and behold, I built an HTPC, it’s ran smoothly, I went to turn it the machine off to move it the A/V shelf and it started to update 65 updates.

That was just the start of the problem period.  Of course, it started blue screening, and then trying to repair itself repeatedly without success. In the process it asked me if I want to use system restore, a wonderful feature, to go back to a previous time when it was running better. I told it to do that, but then it said that system restore cannot restore the computer.

So then, I went in, using advanced tools, to open the folder of  the registry and see if there was anything there.   I then navigated to a  copy of old registry into the current registry folder and I got the machine back to running in a previous state. Next I had to stop, and then restart the system protection services in order to get the system restore capability working again.

At least I got it running again without having to reinstall the operating system.  But now I have to install drivers and updates one at a time to isolate which one caused the problem.

And there are new problems.  The program that came with the motherboard to install the drivers and utilities worked on the first time setting it up. But now it no longer works.  That means that I have to install all of the drivers manually. This is something I can do easily enough but it just adds to the time and frustration

I’m sure that I can navigate the machine back to where it is fully functional. I would go further than that and say that I’m going to be very happy using my HTPC with a couple of extenders to provide my whole house with over the air programming and DVR functionality.

But I can understand why a lot of people won’t want to do this.

What could I have done differently? I did a lot of research before I purchased my parts, and I didn’t find anyone in described how difficult the process would be as I experienced it.  But I did take a chance on the ASRock motherboard.  It got mostly good reviews at Newegg, but there were a few people on Tom’s hardware site that suggested in posts to go with a more well-known board like Gigabyte.  They had no experience with ASRock.  In hindsight, I wish I had purchased a different motherboard.

This is not the first computer I built. The last couple of computers I built used Intel CPUs and Intel motherboards, and those installed Windows without any of these problems.  However over the years, even on those I did run into problems using Windows update as after a security patch would be installed I would have problems with the computer that required time-consuming user intervention.

My exhortation is that if you want to have this wonderful capability be prepared for Windows maintenance, and go with the best parts, i.e., CPUs, motherboard, hard drives, memory, etc. to hopefully have as few installation problems as possible.

And Microsoft, 65 updates is too many.  This isn’t a system loaded down with uncertain third party applications that is having a problem.  This is a basic install!  Get on with and put out SP2 for Windows 7!

© copyright 2013 Mark W Smith, all rights reserved.