MCE record to network drive

CEREAL_KILLER

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 23, 2005
Messages
164
ok so here goes my guide on how to have mce record to a network drive. i actually found these instructions on another site but forget what it was and i know i can clean them up a bit.


first thing is first. you have to mount the network share as a drive. the problem is it has to be mounted for the SYSTEM user not the user you log in as. the way ive done this is by using the command line.

go to the start menu, then to run and type in cmd. this open the commandline. now this is for the current user and you need it to be run by the system so we are going to make a scheduled task to launch cmd for us. we do this by typeing

at (24hr time) /interactive cmd

where it says 24hr time you have to enter a time. basically if its 1:12 AM i would set it to
at 1:13 /interactive cmd
then it will open a new command prompt at 1:13. this one should be run by the system user and we can now use it to create a network drive. i do that by typeing

net use (drive letter) \\(network share * /user:(network user) /persistent:no

my exact line i use is
net use z: \\192.168.0.1\h * /user:192.168.0.1\guest /persistent:no
now the guide i found said to make persistant yes but t didnt seem to work so i set it to no. i have to setup the network drive each time i reboot either way so its not any different either way.

now that i have the network drive z: that points to \\192.168.0.1\h i can now change the registry for mce so that it record to that drive. if you try to set the drive inside the media center app you end up with only the physical drive options. basically you need to edit

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Service\Recording


there are 3 things to set.

recordpath = drive to record to
WatchedFolders = place to look for recorded files
quota = ammount of space for recordings

since i have to modify settings everytime i reboot i actually made a .reg file to do this for me. it contains

Code:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Service\Recording]
"RecordPath"="z:\\video\\raw"
"WatchedFolders"=hex(7):7a,00,3a,00,5c,00,76,00,69,00,64,00,65,00,6f,00,5c,00,\
  72,00,61,00,77,00,00,00,43,00,3a,00,5c,00,44,00,6f,00,63,00,75,00,6d,00,65,\
  00,6e,00,74,00,73,00,20,00,61,00,6e,00,64,00,20,00,53,00,65,00,74,00,74,00,\
  69,00,6e,00,67,00,73,00,5c,00,41,00,6c,00,6c,00,20,00,55,00,73,00,65,00,72,\
  00,73,00,5c,00,44,00,6f,00,63,00,75,00,6d,00,65,00,6e,00,74,00,73,00,5c,00,\
  52,00,65,00,63,00,6f,00,72,00,64,00,65,00,64,00,20,00,54,00,56,00,00,00,00,\
  00
"Quota"="32212254720"

your best bet is to use regedit to modify these settings and then export them someplace.


basically thats all you need to do. there may be easier was to do the cmd bit but i dont know them. if anyone has any ideas please post them here. im sure it would be helpfull.
 
Wow a lot of work went into this....nice job.
 
Thanks for this info! There may be more recent updates to the process outlined in this thread but it's the only thing I have found that works for recording MCE to a NAS. Following the directions in this thread I was able to create a .bat file using the soon.exe. The SOON command is similar to AT except that you only need to specify the amount of seconds from the current time for it to execute. Commands are still executed at the system level so it works. The SOON command works better in .bat files for automating the procedure since you dont have to know the current time. As was noted by the author, the drive mapping and registry setting need to be redone when the machine is rebooted. I just put a bat file with the SOON command in my startup directory and it works fine. I have the SOON command calling a .bat file with the NET USE command. The .bat file with the NET USE command also performs the regedit to make sure the registry keys noted above a set correctly. MCE resets them to the defualt if it can't find the share. Be aware that if you use anything less than 60 seconds with the SOON command it will probably schedule it for the following day. I think it's a known bug. If you don't have the SOON command on your system you can download it from Microsoft.
 
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