LAST UPDATED:  October 14 - changes in RED. 

The only change from the last revision is a recommended 30 gig OS partition.  The last build of vista needed a lot of free space to upgrade with and 20 total is not enough.  30 may not be enough also if you install a lot of other software on your machine.  you really want to end up with about 15 gigs free if you plan to UPGRADE to vista.  If you plan to new install vista then you need about 15 gig minimum on the drive but for programs, settings, temp saves to desktop 20-30 for your partition is about right.  Of course vista is not released yet so this really means nothing but vista can also resize a partition after its installed so you can resize it down if your choice is too high.

Check down a few posts for some I can't make my mce work right install recommendations.

Having a reliable MCE isn't very hard to achieve.  Theres an art to initally installing it and several tricks to help you get it right the first time.  This is not meant to be a planning guide, consider buying the TGB book if you want more indepth planning and usage of your media center.  This guide is meant for someone ready to install media center for the first time or reformat and start over. 

Please help support TGB and click on the link to amazon from the home page.  A small portion of that purchase will go to TGB and help fund the setup. 

Some warnings for the user about to reformat:

Before you reformat you need to know that some of your content will not be playable after your format.  Any protected television that is saved can only be played from that specific media center install.  Reformating is really starting completely over.  Make sure you have watched all your protected content. 

Also, don't forget to save your series tv recordings as well as backing up your drm licenses for paid content/music.  This is documented elsewhere and I'll put the links in here at a later date.  also don't forget you may have software other than windows products like itunes that might also have licenses to backup seperately.

If your currently running a large drive with 1 drive letter.  Consider making partitions on your reinstall.  I would make a 30 gig partition for C and then format a second partition for your tv/storage needs.  This way in the future if you need to format again, you do not have to delete all your existing files and can just format c: and reinstall.

***  If this is your first computer or your media center is no longer bootable or you do not have a cd/dvd burner, jump to the end of this post for additional instructions or changes to the master install list for your situation (several are given)

I strongly recommend everyone keep a notebook of all changes you make, settings, programs, dates, times.  Theres nothing worse than having a problem that took you months to solve and no notes on what you did to have to put the setting back in a year later.  It also makes it easy to say "dvd last worked monday, what did i change since then thats caused it to break".

Installing Media Center, Accident's way.

1.  Download the latest non-beta bios, raid/storage floppy image(primarily sata machines) and chipset drivers from your motherboard manufacturer.  Also if not part of the chipset drivers, download the lan/nic drivers also.
2. Create 2 floppy disks: following your mobo manufacuteres instructions to create the bios update floppy and the raid/storage floppy. 
3. Create a CD with the chipset and nic drivers(if needed).
4. DISCONNECT THE USB RECIEVER FOR THE REMOTE CONTROL.  In fact, hide it.  This is an extremely important step and will save months of standby troubleshooting and problems.  If you have a name computer with the usb remote internally, you want to use the restore cd instead and skip this part (if you don't want to use the restore cd, its probably wise to open it up and disconnect the usb internal cable but I have never tried this to know if its possible.  Keep in mine you may void your warrenty by opening the computer)
5. This is your last chance to backup your system or save anything just in case.  Its highly recommended to do a full real backup, you never know what will happen. 
6. reboot the computer to the bios update floppy and follow your manufacturers instructions to update the bios.  (If you don't have a floppy, run the windows bios updater instead at this point if your mobo offers that option).
7. when the computer reboots, go into bios and setup your prefered settings.  I only recommend disabling all hardware you will never use (printer ports, serial ports, game controllers, onboard sound (if you have a sound card), drive controllers your not using, etc).  Also if your planning to use raid, make sure you setup the drives and enable the raid controller.  Don't assume its still on after the bios update. I strongly recommend checking the detected settings for both memory and cpu.  compare them to product sheets on the websites for your manufacturers.  These are not uncommon to be incorrect and may need manual setting (and sometimes the vendors may release new recommended settings if their on the chip settings weren't ideal).
8. boot to the windows media center disk 1 and follow the install.  If you found a raid/storage driver floppy on the websight, make sure you press F6 when it prompts at the bottom of the screen to provide drivers (anyone know the real wording of this).  it happens really fast and nothing will immediately happen when you press f6.
9. When you reach the point to add additional drivers, follow your mobo user manual and install the the drivers from the floppy you made.  (it MUST be a floppy).  Even if you don't plan to use raid, you probably need to add 2 drivers (1 for storage and 1 for raid).  they are done 1 driver at a time but check the manual for exact instructions.
10. At some point its going to ask for another disk.  No matter what the screen says, swap between disk 1 and disk 2.  Even if your a computer nut and have the exact disk it wants, ignore it and swap between mce disk 1 and 2. (if 2's in the drive, put in 1.  if 1, then 2)  If your setting up a development machine using the msdn version of MCE, when it asks for a disk, click ok like you put it in and when the browse window appears, change the path so DISC1 becomes DISC2.  The rest of the file location is correct.
11. Eventually you get into windows.  If any hardware tries to install itself, HIT CANCEL.  do NOT let it install.
12. Insert the cd you made and install your chipset drivers first.  Reboot if it asks.  Then install your nic drivers (if required) and again, reboot if asked. 
13. At this point you should be on the internet.   If your running an AMD cpu, you should goto amd.com and download the latest drivers for the cpu and install/reboot them now. 
14. run windows update, theres going to be some annoying steps to get windows update up to date.  reboot if needed,  You will probably need to activate windows before the first run is successful.  Keep in mind you get a limited number of activatations before you have to call up to be able to activate it again.  This is nothing to worry about, if you have a legit copy of MCE, you will always be able to activate but its not always as easy as click 2 buttons so don't be shocked if it says you have to call to activate.  This is normal and you did nothing wrong.
15. Eventually you'll get into the full windows update.  Select custom and let it look for patches.  It will automatically select all the criticals for you.  Open up optional and select ALL the patches listed and install everything.  When its done, reboot. (IGNORE HARDWARE!)
16. Go back into windows update and repeat with all critical and optional updates.  (ignore hardware)
17. Keep going back into windows update after every reboot and install all the critical and optional updates (do not install anything from hardware).  Eventually it will have no updates.  No matter what updates you had problems with in the past, ignore that and install everything
18. You now have all the requirements to install other software.  Now download and install your other hardware devices.  I recommend starting with video drivers, then sound drivers, then tuners.  Keep going to manufacturers websites and downlading and installing drivers until device manager shows nothing is missing.
19. Connect your usb remote control reciever to the computer at this time, wait a few moments and the bubble should appear showing its been installed.
20. Install your decoder.  If you do not own one yet, download a trial (I recommend purevideo decoder even if you don't have an nvidia card.  People seem to have the best luck with this). If your using analog sound and purevideo, don't forget to install the 5.1 fix which you'll find just below the download for purevideo.
21. Make sure all your settings are correct, screen size, overscan, etc etc.
22. Setup your sound: Go into sound under the control panel.  Setup your speaker and type of audio settings (analog vs spdif).  Also if your using a decoder that has a control panel, go into that also and setup your sound settings for mpeg2 also (speaker count and spdif for example). 
23. If your dealer gave you the extra cd with sonic encoders, install them now.  If you purchased the 3 pack oem version, its on a seperate cd that was included.  If you have a name computer, connect to the support site of your manufacturer and download sonic encoder and install that.  If your setting up a dev machine with an msdn copy, its already installed and theres nothing to do on this step.
24. Install the hibernate hotfix.  Even if you don't plan to use hibernate or have under 1 gig or less of memory, its still a good idea to install this so you don't have to remember 2 years from now.  http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=909095
25. This is a great time to install your favorite backup software and make a complete dvd/cd backup of your computer.  In the event of a total system failure, you can avoid all the previous steps by making yourself a disaster recovery dvd backup and get your system back online faster.
26. If you saved the recordings file, copy it into its correct location now.
27. (IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A ROUTER, INSTALL YOUR VIRUS SOFTWARE HERE AND DO A FULL SCAN).  If you do have one.  Wait until instructed.
28. give an extra reboot for good luck.  If you do not have your tuners and everything connected.  Shutdown instead of reboot and connect it all up then turn it back on.
29. Put the 2 floppies and cd you created into the motherboard box, along with all extra cables, wires, screws, manuals and label the box and put it away.  If you made a disaster recovery backup, put it in the box also.  In the event of a large problem (like drive dying).  You have all the software you need to immediately install your computer without the use of another computer. 
30. press the green button and setup mce.
31. sound setup part2: If your running purevideo decoder, start playing mpeg2 content (live tv or a dvd), minimize mce and you'll see an icon near the time for the decoder, it will only appear if mpeg2 content is playing.  Open it and setup your purevideo settings, especially the sound options if your using more than 2 speakers or spdif.  If your using a viiv machine or a computer with intel hd audio, you'll find sound options in the more programs section of media center, make sure you setup your sound for your setup. 
32. Fix any standby issues now.  (most likely you'll ONLY need the usbbiosx reg hack only.  I will put instructions in this post at a later date).
33. This is a good place to make a post install dvd backup.  This way anything you try to fix can be undone completely with a full restore. 
34. The only way to find problems is to use your media center machine.  so for the next 24-48 hours, do not add anything else.  get your music, tv, pictures everything built into mce working.  Its much easier to post that you have a problem and only followed these instructions then to list 1000 other things you did when we have to figure out if its a base install or a program you added causing problems.

After 24-48 hours of using mce working perfect

1. Install your favorite virus scanner and do a full system scan. You may want to install and scan for spyware now also.
2. This is a great time to do another system backup to have both a pre-mce setup and post mce-pre plugins recovery cds.
3. If you own any extenders and you were able to hold out this long without the family revolting, I would get them setup as fast as possible.  Its undertandable if you didn't wait 48 hours.
4. Start to install your extras, plugins, codecs, etc.  I strongly recommend one at a time and test inbetween installs.  At any time if something doesn't work right, unintall it and see if you can find information on alternatives or how to fix the issue.  Basically little by little, make your system more complicated.  Doing it all at once really fast, it can be anything causing a problem.

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS:

First computer:

Instead of making floppies and a cd, use the ones included in the motherboard box.  after getting the chipset drivers installed, before updating windows download and install newer versions.

Name computer without rebuild cd:

Your computer came with instructions on how to create the cds or reset your system.  Follow them to create your restore cd.  If not an option, follow the instructions to reset your machine to factory new and then read below for additional steps.

Name computer with rebuild cd:

• Unplug your usb remote control reciever (if external).
• Follow the instructions (usually is boot to the restore cd and sit back).
• Uninstall ALL the software you do not want that your vendor loaded up your machine with.
• Follow instructions 13-17 above.
• Use your manufacturers website for all drivers for your machine.
• Continue and complete the setup starting with 19

SOME RECOMMENDED SETTINGS:

• Auto update should be enabled.  I recommend having it download and notify or just notify you.  This way you will know when theres an update, you can read the details and decide when you want to upgrade.  I would not go more than a week without patching but this way you can delay it until the weekend instead of risking your recordings.
• I have not had success with the nvidia firewall found with the nforce4 chipset.  when I install the chipset drivers I answer no to the install question.  (it should be the last question asked on that install just after it puts in most drivers).
• I recommend disabling the computer browser service.  This is the service that allows your mce to become the master browser (making mce in control of keeping track of all network shares and devices on the network).  it can cause mce to not sleep.  Other compters in the house will take on this role when they are on and it can just scan everytime a resource is needed also so its not disabling any functionality.
• For multi-drive and partition setups.  Ideally the page file should be set to another drive if possible and partition if not.  If you formatted a single partition, theres not much you can do.
• I strongly strongly strongly recommend a good backup program.  Can be as simple as an external maxtor 1 touch drive that can backup time to time or acronis for really good images of your machine.  These are far superior to system restore (and I recommend you almost never use system restore unless you cannot boot after a change).

Uncle Fester's recommendations:

• Set a password for the primary user (most likely Administrator) when setting up Windows. Now it will be possible to Remote Desktop the computer from another PC or laptop at a later time, which is much easier than tweaking it directly infront of the TV in the lounge! [note: you can only use Remote Desktop on an account with a password set]
• To enable auto-logon without prompting for password, select Start | Run, type "control userpasswords2" | Untick "Users must enter a username and password to use this computer". Then enter a username and password for auto logon.
• Switch off Drive Indexing on the c: drive (Properties of the drive in Explorer/My Computer).  Switch on Drive Indexing on the d: drive (the partition with all of the media on it)
• Defrag the c: drive when everything is installed. And set defrag up as a scheduled task to run overnight once a week (at a time when you're unlikely to be recording anything). If the PC is set to sleep automatically you could wake it by setting another scheduled task to restart Windows just beforehand. A weekly restart and defrag does wonders for keeping MCE quick and responsive.

Bryan, great guide, it'll be very helpful. Might I suggest spacing out the numbered points for readibilitys sake?

I figured most would print it and just check it off so the type should print well.  did I miss anything I was half asleep at the time.

I'm going to make a modification later when I"m more awake for a variation of the install for a user trying to locate a possible driver conflict.  Its just minor where you get windows up to date, then backup before putting in hardware drivers.  This way if the problem is the hardware drivers, then you can quickly get to the point before them to try it without hardware or different hardware and no go though the long and boring process of the windows update that requires activation (and you only get so many before your calling microsoft to allow you to activate again).

Good guide Bryan, hopefully this helps out people new to MC's..

David Wright

Outage is over so I can finally get to putting in my little revision.  I'm going to add it above but I wanted to list it here also.

If your media center is completely out of wack, crashing, freezing, not sure what it just wont work right you should take a different approach on your rebuild. 

First off, never assume all your hardware is functioning correctly.  Theres also this little annoyance that every part in your machine might be media center certified, but that doesn't mean every certified part is compatible with other certified parts.  I have a stack of 15 tuners on the shelf to prove this and theres a reason so many high end vendors are using the same parts as each other.

If you've tried raid in the past, maybe its the raid.  If you have a lot of different brand tunners, its probably this.  But it could be incompatible memory, aging/dying power supply.  Anything really. 

So for the frustrated user looking to try this one more time.  My recommendation is reduce the hardware in your mce machien to bare minimum.  You may even want to remove the tuners.  I personally would remove all but 1 analog tuner but it depends on whats broken.  if everything seemed broken, remove all the tuners and get mce working with dvds first.

As you reinstall, your going to take very small baby steps.  You definately want to purchase a real backup software package if you do not have one.  I recommend acronis (www.acronis.com).  What this will let you do is make a dvd copy of your hard drive so if you find a problem, your not going to uninstall it, your going to use acronis and restore to the last good backup you made.  on a new mce install, it will take you about 10-15 minutes to burn a dvd copy of your whole drive.  You want to avoid system restore like its the plague.  the reason is system restore and even uninstall may not remove everything that your trying to remove.  the only way to really remove it is to restore (aka format and start over).  But thats annoying to do and windows activation only works so many times.  When you work from an image of your drive, you can format and restore much like system restore but its a much safer way to move forward when you want a reliable pc setup.

Just before you make any change, you want to backup then make the change and test.  If it breaks, you want to restore and either try it again or skip to the next piece of hardware.  So if you run 4 tuners, your going to spend awhile shutting down and inserting each card, then setup tv and test.  once your happy its working, your going to shutdown and put in the next tuner.  I would setup external tuners last unless your external is your only analog tuner and oyu need it for atsc to work.

So with that.  We are going to change the first post order for you.  The general theory on this is to get mce and windows up to date before moving on. 

• Perform steps 1 to 13.  (do not enable auto-update during the install)
• Activate windows over the internet. 
• Install your backup software here and make a backup. (call it activated windows)
• perform steps 14 to 17 to bring mce and windows up to date.
• Make another backup (call it updated windows)
• Install drivers from your manufacturers websites for video and sound. (note if your video card is asus brand, asus is the website you should be getting drivers from).
• Perform 19 to 20
• Give an extra reboot for good luck.
• Load mce, setup initally and start your mce testing with dvd playback.  This will factor out video sound and decoder issues.  If any problems.  restore your pc to updated windows backup and try different driver versions.
• Once you have it working make a new backup and call it [mce, no tuners].
• Shutdown, unplug and install 1 analog tuner. 
• Setup the drivers and setup tv and test.  If not working, restore to mce, no tuners and try different drivers/settings.  (note that cannot change channels is working, crashing mce is not working). 
• Continue with 1 tuner at a time.  you may want to make additional backups between tuners, thats up to you.   Keep in mind your tuners might not be compatible with each other, you may not be able to get them all to work together and may need to try many variations of tuners to get as many working together as possible.  Then replace the offending hardware for something matching (or send it in for repair).
• Once you get everyting working.  you can work on other things like standby.  Don't even try to get standby to work until you have all your hardware to make mce work in your machien first.  aka, babysteps.
• Continue with 28 and then onto the 48 hours later options.

Moving forward:

I strongly recommend never using system restore.  Whats best is to make a new backup (doesn't need to be dvd, could be an image on your drive if you have the space).  then make the change, no matter how small.  If it doesn't work, restore using the backup and not system restore.  I generally backup just before installing any software.  restore doesnt' take much longer than system restore if your only backing up your C: drive with media center on it.

Wife Happiness reminder:

While your doing this, your family isn't watching tv.  Set the tv back up for live tv and work on mce on the side.  I personally prefer to use the exact tv, but this is why you made that first backup.  When you get it working using a monitor in the other room (and antenna to test tv instead of your cable line) you can then take your notes (you made notes right??) and restore to either the just after activation or just after windows updates and quickly put in all the correct versions of everything.  When you get it perfect.  remember to make a reinstall cd thats all the drivers you used and put them into the box so you can rebuild in the future.

Why did we make so many backups?

Theres many reasons why you might want to restore back to various states of drivers.  Remember, when you format your drive, content becomes unplayable.  Well when you restore a drive, its still the same install your working on.  So if you change a lot of the comptuer one day.  You can restore to the just afer activation, then go in on safe mode to install different chipset drivers, and then install your machine from scratch.  If you want to save some time, you can jump to the end of hte windows updates.  But you have those options in the future now.  you never know when you'll need one of those backups and you'll be really happy you have them if you do and you only wasted 15 minutes of your time if you don't.

accident:

Wife Happiness reminder:

While your doing this, your family isn't watching tv.  Set the tv back up for live tv and work on mce on the side. <snip>

I love that piece of advice!  Excellent guide!

Made a minor change to check your memory and cpu settings in bios and added a couple recommended settings.

Accident- a great guide and fantastic resource.

A few extra points to add which may be useful...

 - Set a password for the primary user (most likely Administrator) when setting up Windows. Now it will be possible to Remote Desktop the computer from another PC or laptop at a later time, which is much easier than tweaking it directly infront of the TV in the lounge! [note: you can only use Remote Desktop on an account with a password set]

To enable auto-logon without prompting for password, select Start | Run, type "control userpasswords2" | Untick "Users must enter a username and password to use this computer". Then enter a username and password for auto logon.

- Switch off Drive Indexing on the c: drive (Properties of the drive in Explorer/My Computer)

- Switch on Drive Indexing on the d: drive (the partition with all of the media on it)

- Defrag the c: drive when everything is installed. And set defrag up as a scheduled task to run overnight once a week (at a time when you're unlikely to be recording anything). If the PC is set to sleep automatically you could wake it by setting another scheduled task to restart Windows just beforehand. A weekly restart and defrag does wonders for keeping MCE quick and responsive.

- Also, install the Sonic encoders to allow recording of Recorded TV to DVD. These two programs are normally on the 3rd MCE install disk (if you have it) or can be downloaded for free.

Hope this helps.

nice, I'll add them in later except for the sonic encoders one.  its not suppose to be free and i'm not going to encourage downloading software like that.

another thread made me realize that the common hdtv issues that you need to fix should be int he guide so i'll be editing asap (snakes on a plane tonight so it wont be tonight!!)  to add them into the instructions.

Thanks to someone (I'll put int the correct username here) for posting a hotfix to an error I've never seen before in my overly long overly worded new mce thread.

If you have more than 1 gig of memory and use hibernation you should install a hotfix.

The KB article and the hotfix download can be found here: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=909095

    HP posts the Sonic Encoders on its web site. What is wrong with downloading it? Does not look illegal to get this from HP's site. Maybe so if you do not own a HP MCE machine but they are the ones posting it.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericSoftwareDownloadIndex?lc=en&cc=us&softwareitem=ob-30721-1

Or just go to HP support site and Search for Sonic Encoders.

its a flaw in their support site.  its not a free program but it is included if your using an hp machine and hp does make updates available to their customers.  they just happen to make updates available to the entire world at the same time but its still not free software and I'm not adding that information to a guide on how to setup your media center machine.

just put in some changes to add info from the thread into the order as well as some steps to get 5.1 and non-analog sound working right.