I'm having a hard time using the Play To function in WMP12 with 7MC.  All machines are running Windows 7 Enterprise and I can play music from my laptops to my workstations no problem.  However, I have a dedicated 7MC machine, and no matter what I do I can't get it to show up in the Play To list on any of my networked workstations.  It DOES work when I close 7MC on the media center PC and open WMP.

I know a previous poster had a similar problem and one response said that 7MC cannot function as a Play To device, that WMP12 needs to be running instead.  I find this very, very hard to believe... doesn't 7MC use WMP12 as its rendering engine for music? 

This is really a huge deal for me as the 7MC is connected to the best speakers in the house, and my wife and I have music on our laptops that we would like to stream over that system.  If this is a known omission in 7MC, it seems like a big oversight.

Hard to believe, but true.  I run WMP minimized behind 7MC for exactly that reason.  Play-To of audio from other Win7 machines then works just fine.

 Video requires switching WMP to the foreground, which requires that I get out the mouse or the keyboard.  If I want full-screen that's a few more clicks/keystrokes.  Not exactly family-friendly, but workable.

 Perhaps an enterprising developer can find a way to automate bringing WMP to the foreground in fullscreen when it's playing video.  (Bonus points for also automatically pausing 7MC.)  Or maybe one of the keyboard macro tools can catch a button on the remote to do it.  Or perhaps an update to 7MC will come along to improve the situation.

-- Pete

Eegads.  What a disappointing thing to learn!  One of the things I was really looking forward to was the "Play to" feature and using my WMC as the receiver!  I was even thinking (dreaming, I suppose) that I could do it for all kinds of media I'd come across surfing on my laptop, and wanted to share with the family on the home theater.  Just a right-click/play-to and instant sharing on the TV.   Talk about on-demand media!

Microsoft, do you get revenue from breaking the hearts of media enthusiasts?  

Jon

Yikes.  This is really, really strange... I simply don't understand why this wouldn't be part of 7MC's default abilities.  At the very least, I'd think that music would be supported. 

Is this really so hard for MS to implement?  Before people start saying "oh why don't you just write a MCML thing to do it" or whatever, it would be nice for this kind of basic functionality to be included.  I like to run as clean a Media Center PC as possible without too many add-ons.  Besides, with all the hype MS put on the Play To feature, it seems like a no brainer for them to make their media hub a real media hub.

<sigh>