Question: WMC EPG download and XBMC as a shell
#1
I'm considering the EventGhost method described here:
WIKI - HOW-TO: Make Windows boot directly to XBMC (as a shell)
Now my question.
Without Windows' "explorer.exe" running as a shell, Windows Media Center DVB-T scheduled EPG downloads will take place or not?

Thanks for your attention,
Leonardo.
Motherboard: ASRock FM2A88X-ITX+ - FCH: AMD A88X "Bolton-D4" | APU: AMD "Kaveri" A8-7600 with Radeon R7 graphics | RAM: 8GiB DDR3-2133 | SSD: mSATA Samsung 840 EVO 120GB | HDD: 5 x 500GB 2.5" Hitachi Travelstar (two-way mirror) | DVB-T Tuner: AVerMedia AVerTV Volar HD PRO | O.S.: MS-Windows 8.1 Pro x64 with Media Center
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#2
I was hoping someone else would know. All I can tell you is that windows needs to have two services running in order to do the record and epg: ehRecvr and ehSched - these are both installed and started when you config wmc. I believe its ehSched that does the download. As long as you have these running you should be good. I don't think they will need explorer. Let us know how it goes.
Windows Media Center PVR addon (pvr.wmc) and server backend (ServerWMC)
http://bit.ly/serverwmc
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#3
Thanks a lot for your quick response. Next days I will let you know if it goes well or not.
In the meantime I used XBMCLauncher to set EventGhost as the default shell, with XBMC.exe in Autostart.
So when I power up my system it will directly load the front-end.
Thanks to my mSATA SSD and the ASRock UEFI Ultra Fast Boot feature, the entire booting process takes only a few seconds. It's so fast that sometimes I hardly see Windows 8.1 welcome logon screen...
When I close XBMC Windows Explorer is not loaded, but that's my personal choice.
Anyway, in EG I mapped a couple of keys.
If I press, for example, the Windows Logo key, it will run explorer.exe (only for maintainance/configuration purposes, because my system is working only as an HTPC).
Motherboard: ASRock FM2A88X-ITX+ - FCH: AMD A88X "Bolton-D4" | APU: AMD "Kaveri" A8-7600 with Radeon R7 graphics | RAM: 8GiB DDR3-2133 | SSD: mSATA Samsung 840 EVO 120GB | HDD: 5 x 500GB 2.5" Hitachi Travelstar (two-way mirror) | DVB-T Tuner: AVerMedia AVerTV Volar HD PRO | O.S.: MS-Windows 8.1 Pro x64 with Media Center
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#4
Very cool. Is there anyway to tell what services are running when you boot like this?
Windows Media Center PVR addon (pvr.wmc) and server backend (ServerWMC)
http://bit.ly/serverwmc
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#5
Yeah I held off from answering since I didnt have any specific experience with this. Eg i didnt know whether services or programs set to autostart, will actually work or not, if explorer.exe was not run. Does ServerWMC application run under your new setup and are you running it as a service or as the normal app?

if you want to see what services are running, im assuming you can still get to MMC and look at Services snap in, or run a command prompt and use
Code:
sc.exe query <servicename>
pvr.wmc TV addon and ServerWMC Backend Development Team
http://bit.ly/ServerWMC
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#6
Thank you for your quick answers. I know very well SC command because I used it for some software install scripts that I made at work.
Last weekend I was out of home for a short vacation, so no time for other investigations...
For now all I can say is that I noticed that an executable (mcGlidHost.exe) is shown as running when WMC downloads the EPG.
Motherboard: ASRock FM2A88X-ITX+ - FCH: AMD A88X "Bolton-D4" | APU: AMD "Kaveri" A8-7600 with Radeon R7 graphics | RAM: 8GiB DDR3-2133 | SSD: mSATA Samsung 840 EVO 120GB | HDD: 5 x 500GB 2.5" Hitachi Travelstar (two-way mirror) | DVB-T Tuner: AVerMedia AVerTV Volar HD PRO | O.S.: MS-Windows 8.1 Pro x64 with Media Center
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#7
Interesting info! I googled that program name and found some talk about it, I saw a comment there that mentioned as long as you watch or record a channel, the EPG data is kept up to date from the stream. So it sounds like the WMC services must be doing this and not just the WMC UI application which is good.

You could use Process Explorer tool (from sysinternals/microsoft) to see what the parent of this mcGlidHost.exe is, when it's called.
pvr.wmc TV addon and ServerWMC Backend Development Team
http://bit.ly/ServerWMC
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#8
I launched Process Explorer.
The mcGlidHost.exe process is running, along with a COM surrogate (dllhost.exe) in a process tree:
wininit.exe -> services.exe -> svchost.exe -> mcGlidHost.exe
And I can confirm that the above process is running even if Windows Explorer (explorer.exe) is not loaded at startup.
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#9
A little off-topic: a (badly filmed - sorry!) short video, showing my system's boot process.
Note that this is a cold boot and NOT a resume from suspend and/or hibernate.
My other DVB-T HDD/DVD recorder (LG RHT397H) is about 10 times slower in booting...!
Link: YouTube
Motherboard: ASRock FM2A88X-ITX+ - FCH: AMD A88X "Bolton-D4" | APU: AMD "Kaveri" A8-7600 with Radeon R7 graphics | RAM: 8GiB DDR3-2133 | SSD: mSATA Samsung 840 EVO 120GB | HDD: 5 x 500GB 2.5" Hitachi Travelstar (two-way mirror) | DVB-T Tuner: AVerMedia AVerTV Volar HD PRO | O.S.: MS-Windows 8.1 Pro x64 with Media Center
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#10
(2014-06-03, 21:03)fastleo63 Wrote: I launched Process Explorer.
The mcGlidHost.exe process is running, along with a COM surrogate (dllhost.exe) in a process tree:
wininit.exe -> services.exe -> svchost.exe -> mcGlidHost.exe
And I can confirm that the above process is running even if Windows Explorer (explorer.exe) is not loaded at startup.
Cool, that confirms it is being launched by the WMC Epg service (or rec service but more likely Epg I reckon)


Question : are you running ServerWMC as a windows service, or just the default (application mode)?
pvr.wmc TV addon and ServerWMC Backend Development Team
http://bit.ly/ServerWMC
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#11
@scarecrow420: my apologies, i didn't notice that you asked me the same question twice.
The answer is yes. ServerWMC is running as a Windows service.
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Question: WMC EPG download and XBMC as a shell0