This article explains how to add multiple Media Browser icons to the Windows Media Center Start menu.
Limiting factors:
Media Center has some (not so obvious) limiting factors to work with. Sometimes if you don’t know about them, Media Center will give you no indication, just that “it’s not working”. So please read this section carefully because you will run into at least one of these issues and you will have no idea why.
Vista limitations:
- There is a maximum number of 4 items allowed in a start menu strip. (4 items max for Vista, 5 items max for Windows 7)
- You can only have 2 custom start menu strips in Vista. This means if you already have a couple other applications with their own menu strips, you will not be able to add more.
Windows 7 limitations:
- There is a maximum number of 5 items allowed in a start menu strip. (4 items max for Vista, 5 items max for Windows 7)
Required Software
- Media Browser 2.2.1 or greater
- Media Center Studio (MCS for short)
Check Media Browser configuration
Add all your folders and plugins you wish to use in Media Browser, if you haven’t already. We suggest you do this step, launch MB, and validate the folders and plugins are setup correctly before moving on to the next step.
Open Media Browser and confirm all of your Virtual Folders and Plugins are visible and functional. Direct entry will NOT work on VF’s functioning incorrectly in Media browser.
Adding Entry Points to Media Center Menu Strips
You can now fully edit default menu strips in Vista & Windows 7 Media Center using “Media Center Studio”. This means you can add Media Browser entrypoints to already existing menu strips in MC (e.g. TV, Movies extras menus).
There is one drawback in Windows 7 (and perhaps in Vista with TV pack installed):
- every time you make an entrypoint change (add/remove/rename) the changes will NOT be reflected in Media Center. After the change is made in the configurator, you must apply those changes to Media Center using Media Center Studio. This is only a bug in Windows 7 (and maybe in Vista with TV pack installed)
Launch Media Center Studio (make sure Media Center is closed)
- Click the “Start menu” tab.
- (optional) Create new Menu Strips (Max of 2 custom strips allowed in Vista)
- Click the “Entry points” button on the bottom left of MCS
- Grab and drag the Media Browser entrypoints you want to the start menu strips in MCS (A maximum of 1 extra icon can be placed in the TV + Movies Menu strip in Vista)
- (optional) Add a custom icon for the entry points by double clicking the Entry Point in the Entry Points selection window
- You can move the entrypoints around, change the order of the start menu strips, and enable/disable other icons/strips within MCS
Be sure to hit the “Save” button on the top left of the application to apply your settings.
Known Issues
- (Windows 7 only) If an entrypoint is removed by the configurator after it was added to a Menu strip in Media center, the icon will remain in the menu strip, and cannot be removed. This is an MCS / Media Center bug. The current workaround is to click “restore defaults” in MCS if this happens.
- There is a known issue with using MCS on Windows 7 where you do not use the default Media Browser Start Menu Strip. The creator of MCS is aware of this, but the cause is still unknown. There is a workaround for this. For more details please have a look at this thread.