Inchoate Thoughts

Launching XBMC with a Windows Media Center Remote

XBMC

Updated 10/23/2010: Based on some comments, I’ve released a new version with an installer and file for defining custom parameters. Big thanks to Joshka for showing me a neat registry trick that allowed me to create the installer. I’ve also moved the source to a subversion repository. Enjoy!

I recently took up the task of switching my media center software from Windows 7 Media Center to the Windows version of XBMC. I found XBMC easier to get working with obscure encodings of video files (it uses mplayer instead of the normal codec engine). But, my reasons for switching are not the point of this post. The point here is that switching to XBMC from Windows Media Center has a few challenges. One such challenge is getting the Windows Media Center remote to work in a nice way. Luckily, some excellent work has been done on that front. People have already provided premade media center remote configurations for XBMC. However, the “start” button on the media center remote still had the nasty habit of launching the Windows 7 Media Center app instead of launching XBMC.

I looked around the ol’ Internet for a solution to this problem. Turns out, the behavior of that “Start” or “Green” button on the media center remote is to cause a special key combination to be pressed. This key combination is bound to launching “C:\Windows\ehome\ehshell.exe.” The quickest workaround to the problem is to change ehshell.exe to something that launches XBMC. I then saw some people had written some batch files that launched XBMC. They then used a batch-to-exe converter to make it an executable and replaced ehshell.exe. That was great, but it still had a weakness. If, for some reason, XBMC was taken out of the foreground, it wouldn’t come back. Bummer. So I fixed it!

I wrote a little application to launch XBMC. It does a few things. First, it will check if XBMC is already running. If it is, it will bring it to the foreground for you. If it isn’t running, it will launch it. It will first try using the install location in the registry to find where to launch XBMC from. If it can’t find that, it will try the default location of the XBMC.exe file (both 32-bit and 64-bit versions).

Download The Installer

Manual Install Files and Instructions

Finally, here is the (very simple) source code:

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using System;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.IO;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using Microsoft.Win32;

namespace XbmcLauncher
{
static class Program
{
[DllImport("user32.dll")]
private static extern bool SetForegroundWindow(IntPtr hWnd);

[DllImport("user32.dll")]
private static extern bool ShowWindow(IntPtr hWnd, int cmdShow);

private const int SW_SHOWMAXIMIZED = 3;

/// <summary>
/// The main entry point for the application.
/// </summary>
static void Main()
{
// Attempt to bring an existing XBMC to the foreground.
// If none exists, open XBMC.
if(!BringProcessToForeground())
OpenXbmc();
}

private static bool BringProcessToForeground()
{
Process[] processes = Process.GetProcessesByName("XBMC");
if (processes.Length != 0)
{
// If XBMC is currently running, bring it to the foreground
IntPtr hWnd = processes[0].MainWindowHandle;
ShowWindow(hWnd, SW_SHOWMAXIMIZED);
SetForegroundWindow(hWnd);
return true;
}
return false;
}

private static void OpenXbmc()
{
string xbmcPath = null;

// Attempt to find the XBMC executable location via the registry
RegistryKey key = Registry.CurrentUser.OpenSubKey(@"Software\XBMC");

if (key != null) // If the path is in the registry use it to open XBMC
{
xbmcPath = key.GetValue("") as string;
if (LaunchXbmcProcess(xbmcPath + @"\XBMC.exe"))
return;
}
else // Otherwise, we'll try to use the default locations
{
string x86Path = @"C:\Program Files\XBMC\XBMC.exe";
string x64Path = @"C:\Program Files (x86)\XBMC\XBMC.exe";

if (LaunchXbmcProcess(x86Path))
return;
else
LaunchXbmcProcess(x64Path);
}
}

private static bool LaunchXbmcProcess(string path)
{
if (path != null && File.Exists(path))
{
string args = "";
Process proc = new Process();

if(File.Exists("XBMCLaunchArgs.txt"))
{
using (StreamReader argStream = File.OpenText("XBMCLaunchArgs.txt"))
{
args = argStream.ReadLine();
argStream.Close();
}
}

proc.StartInfo = new ProcessStartInfo(path, args);
proc.Start();
BringProcessToForeground();
return true;
}
return false;
}
}
}

Get the full source, project files, and install scripts at http://inchoatethoughts.com/xbmclauncher/ (subversion)

Tags: Green Button, Media Center, Programming, Remote, XBMC

Programming | Jacob February 13, 2010

93 Comments to “Launching XBMC with a Windows Media Center Remote”

By Tery, February 14, 2010 @ 3:58 am

Hi,
This works fine but there is a little problem, lots of us use xbmc portable mode (arg -p), maybe you can compil one launcher for each mode ?

Thanx.

TerY.
By Jacob, February 14, 2010 @ 8:53 am

Sure. I’ve reuploaded the zip file. The zip now has a portable mode folder with an ehshell.exe set to launch XBMC with the “-p” arg. If I find out there are a lot of command line parameters people like to use, I’ll have to do something more elaborate with the launcher. But, this should work for now.
By Ronald, February 16, 2010 @ 5:00 am

maybe use something like;

cacls %systemroot%\ehome\ehshell.exe /e /g administrator:F

for the first 8 steps? (just a thought)

Big thanks for your input on the Shell!
By Jacob, February 16, 2010 @ 9:09 am

I think that could replace steps 7 through 9. The problem, and please correct me if I’m mistaken here, is that Administrators don’t have ownership of that file by default. Before we can change permissions, we need to take ownership. Is there a command prompt mechanism for doing so? I can totally see these install instructions being a big pain, so anything to reduce that would be nice.
By Ronald, February 16, 2010 @ 12:17 pm

This only works in Vista/7;
takeown /F ehshell.exe
and then change the permissions.
My guess was it could be possible with robocopy but then we still need SUBINACL
By steelman1991, February 17, 2010 @ 5:16 am

Hi

Just a quick question on this – I ahve had a terrible time getting my Harmony One (emulating an MCE Remote) to launch xbmc on a consistent basis. Can you advise whether the only changes listed in your article are required. I notice that in the rar file there is also an XbmcLauncher.exe – should this be unrared anywhere I cannot find any instructions relating to this – Sorry if this is a stupid question.
By Jacob, February 17, 2010 @ 3:15 pm

I’m also using a Harmony remote emulating an MCE remote, so that certainly shouldn’t be an issue. XbmcLauncher.exe is the exact same file as ehshell.exe, just renamed. So no, you have no reason to do anything with it. You should only need to do what is listed in the install instructions. Has the launcher worked at all for you? If you double click XbmcLauncher.exe in the directory where you unzip everything, does XBMC start? If it doesn’t, the launcher is probably having trouble locating your XBMC directory. Perhaps you didn’t run the installer and just copied over the XBMC directory to your machine?

The launcher works by checking the registry key “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\XBMC\(Default)” for an XBMC directory. If it fails to do that, it will check the default 32-bit and 64-bit XBMC install directories (“C:\Program Files\XBMC” or “C:\Program Files (x86)\XBMC”). If neither of those two approaches work at finding your XBMC directory, the launcher won’t know what to do and will just exit.
By steelman1991, February 17, 2010 @ 11:39 pm

Hi Jacob

Sorry my bad – I wasn’t having issues with your launcher, but with the various options available on xbmc (jhsrennie’s .reg and launching from a shortcut key). None of the solutions worked and I was having problems finding a stable solution. I just wasn’t sure what effect if anything the XbmcLauncher.exe had.

I tried your launcher with the combination of jhsrennie’s Remote-SendKeys.reg, however without the availability of a mapped ‘info’ button in his config (can’t think why this is missing from his config – might need to ask), this was useless for xbmc. I have since moved to a simulated mce keyboard activity within the Harmony set-up and everything has worked OK.

Sorry for the confusion. Everything working as it should at the moment and thanks for your hard work in providing a solution – was starting to tear my hair out trying to get this to work.
By dotbenjamin, March 10, 2010 @ 12:35 pm

Amazing — thank you so much. Bit of a hack, but it’s at least a reasonably robust one.

Thanks again!
By PiCaRd359, March 11, 2010 @ 4:56 am

Thanks for the hack, though I seem to be having some trouble. I can launch XBMC from the XBMCLauncher.exe but the remote is not launching it. Any ideas for troubleshooting? I am running XBMC 9.11 on Win 7.
By CJ, April 25, 2010 @ 4:27 pm

Awesome, thank you!
By Mei Yang, May 11, 2010 @ 11:41 pm

Thanks for the hack. Worked beautifully for me. I am using a HP MCE remote with Windows 7.
By Dave, May 21, 2010 @ 2:17 am

Works perfectly, cheers!
By martin, May 23, 2010 @ 3:05 pm

Excellent work! does exactly what it says on the tin. fabulous!
By Pete, May 25, 2010 @ 10:32 pm

Thank You for putting the time in and making this. Works perfect!!!
By mb, June 3, 2010 @ 8:00 pm

Thanks for the launcher! I’m starting to use Boxee more and more and would like to launch Boxee instead of XBMC. I think I know how to modify the source code to launch Boxee, but I’m not sure how to re-compile and create the eshell.exe afterwards. Any help would be appreciated. Others may be interested in a BoxeeLauncher as well
By Jacob, June 3, 2010 @ 8:23 pm

Yeah, it shouldn’t be too much of a hassle to make it work for Boxee. Especially if the Boxee installer creates a registry key pointing to where the program is the same was as XBMC. I’ve been meaning to give Boxee a run for a while now, I’ll see what I can whip up.
By Ulme, June 5, 2010 @ 3:49 am

Hey,

nice work! Works great at my system (x64 win7). But, I have “ultramon” running, which allows me to start an executable on the 2nd Monitor . . . (exe link: “C:\Program Files\UltraMon\UltraMonShortcuts.exe” /l C:\ProgramData\Realtime Soft\UltraMon\ShellShortcuts\Media Center.umshortcut”)

I want to change the startcommand of the launcher. How can I do that?
By vilrockerdefer, August 7, 2010 @ 3:42 pm

Hello,

I seem to have a problem getting this to work on XP 32bit : whenever I rename, move or erase ehshell.exe, after a few seconds it reappears. If, during that time I copy your ehshell, the previous ehshell overwrites it.

Help !
By vilrockerdefer, August 7, 2010 @ 6:18 pm

Well, through safe mode and reading-only your file, I was able to place it right.

Problem is, when I push the green button I get this error : “strong name validation failed for assembly ‘c:\windows\ehome\ehshell.exe’. The file may have been tampered with or it was partially signed but not fully signed with the correct private key”

Still begging for help…
By Jacob, August 7, 2010 @ 6:42 pm

Windows XP? Do you mean Windows Media Center 2005 or XP? I’m not familiar with what eshell.exe normally launches on XP. Anyway, when files on XP are replaced, they are being copied from “%windir%\system32\dllcache.” It’s like an auto-restore mechanism in case one of them gets altered by malware or something. (I used to have this issue when trying to replace Notepad.exe with a different text editor). That said, there are a few ways to address this. You could just copy the modified eshell.exe to the system32\dllcache directory first. See this article: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/omars/archive/2004/04/30/124093.aspx – it’s meant for notepad replacement, but the same concept should apply for eshell.exe.
By vilrockerdefer, August 8, 2010 @ 6:28 am

Thanks for answering. I did the above method and that works indeed. But I still get the error message I mentioned, and a second one I didn’t mention before but that was already there too after I click the first : “EHshell.exe – common language runtime debugging services. Application has generated an exception that could not be handled. Process id=0xadc (2780), Thread id=0xae0 (2784).”

I have the option to click CANCEL to debug the application. But if I do that I have another message stating that I don’t have the resitered “jit debugger”.

Au secours !
By Vazgen Koudagooli, August 9, 2010 @ 8:58 pm

Im using a AVS MCE certified windows remote. Did the patch job copied the exe and works. I press windows button and it launches XBMC..NOW THIS IS PROBLEM.. XBMC keeps launching itself. I dont press the button and xbmc is completely shut down…every 10 sec it starts by itself..any help
By Vazgen Koudagooli, August 9, 2010 @ 9:01 pm

wait i just restarted PC and seems this problem is gone
By sufreak, August 17, 2010 @ 12:05 pm

If you have a harmony remote, make life easy. Program the Shortcut Hotkey, and map everything over to keyboard commands. Problem solved.

The only thing more you can do is use the advancedconfig file to create a Quit function.

Now, I have my system launch XBMC when I switch to my Media Center, and it quits XBMC when I “power off”.

My next step is to get the sleep functions working, and everything will be good to go.
By Mal, August 26, 2010 @ 2:12 pm

Just what I needed. Using a cheap wireless keyboard with WMC buttons – now XMBC buttons.
Thanks
By Derek, August 30, 2010 @ 8:02 pm

Hi,

One more refinement would make this already great script perfect!

If you press the green button while XBMC is already running, but is either minimized or in windowed mode, it would be really great if it would un-minimize and switch to fullscreen mode.

I have no idea if this is possible.
By Bilal, September 15, 2010 @ 7:55 am

You are a star!

I’ve been using XBMC on my Mac mini and it had an option built-in to launch XBMC when the Apple remote menu button was pressed instead of Apple’s Front Row.

Now I can do the same thing with XBMC in Windows 7 and the extra work you’ve done to check if it’s already running is great.

I’m not a programmer but, with all these requests for modified loading parameters, how about having it read from a separate config file?

It could just have a single line (e.g. C:\program files\XBMC\XBMC.exe) that people could edit as they see fit, and even an extra line that can be changed to look for a different running process (e.g. VLC) without editing/recompiling the source.

I’m downloading VS2010 Express to see if I can maybe do this. If it works, I’ll post back.
By Jacob, September 15, 2010 @ 8:51 am

Yeah, you can absolutely do that. No one has really requested more parameters, so I haven’t bothered with solving that issue yet. It shouldn’t be very difficult though. Let me know if you have issues opening this in VC# Express.
By Bilal, September 15, 2010 @ 4:18 pm

Hi again,

After much wrestling with VirtualBox, I got VS2010 Express running. It had to convert your project first but, using a combination of Googling things and staring at the screen trying to figure out what’s going on, I’ve finished a dodgy version that reads a file called anyproglauncher.cfg in the ehome folder:

http://www.bilalsheikh.co.uk/windows/anyproglauncher.zip

The hilarious cfg file contains three lines:

Line 1 tells the program what process name to look for(notepad)
Line 2 is the path to the program to run
Line 3 is for any arguments to send to the program

If notepad is running, it’ll bring it into focus, or open it if it isn’t. I haven’t done any sort of bug-checking other than running it a few times, but it appears to work. So far it seems the process name is basically the exe file without the .exe bit but this could vary between programs. I’ve only tried it with WMP, Notepad and Chrome. I had to remove all the XBMC folder-checking bits as I didn’t know how to get the variables from the cfg file line reading section to be accessible by those bits so just removed them.

The source folder is in there, too.

It’s been fun, and hopefully it won’t cause any nuclear meltdowns or 100% CPU-athons.

As for Derek’s suggestion about maximising the screen, I’m hoping there’s a command that maximises the current window, similar to how you got it to bring the window into focus, but I haven’t looked it up yet.

Next up could be some kind of groovy config form to make the cfg file automatically (and maybe turn it into squiggly code like the cfg files for cool programs).
By Mota, September 26, 2010 @ 4:59 am

Works GREAT!! Thank you so much.
By Joshka, September 26, 2010 @ 8:05 pm

Heya,

Thanks for this little app. You can reduce the installation effort significantly to one step using the Image File Execution Options registry key. Windows has a neat feature that allows you to replace one executable with another for debugging purposes.

1. Run the following command from an adminstrator command line (Press Win, type cmd, press Ctrl+Shift+Enter):

reg add “HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\ehshell.exe” /v “Debugger” /t REG_SZ /d “\”C:\tools\XbmcLauncher\XbmcLauncher.exe\”" /f

Alternatively paste the following lines into notepad and save as a .Reg file, then double click on the file that you just created. (This might be useful to package with the XbmcLauncher zip file.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\ehshell.exe]
“Debugger”=”C:\\tools\\XbmcLauncher\\XbmcLauncher.exe”

Note: I have assumed an that the tool is unzipped to c:\tools. If you unzip the tool elsewhere you’ll need to change this value. It would be fairly trivial to create an installer for the tool that handles all this automatically, or even just adjusts this registry key on first run.

Joshka
By Jakweeze, October 11, 2010 @ 11:22 am

Just curious, it states above that:
“First, it will check if XBMC is already running. If it is, it will bring it to the foreground for you.”

I see this also refected in the source code, however running Dharma-b2, Win7x64, over HDMI and in Fullscreen OR Maximized window instead of Fullscreen (whatever that option reads in XBMC Video Settings) and alt-tab out, when I click the Windows button on the remote I see a quick hourglass, and nothing happens.

On the bright side it’s not relaunching a different XBMC over the current one, on the downside it’s not bringing it to the forefront.

Wondering if it’s a setting I have going on somewhere or what’s happening! Thanks much.
By Jacob, October 11, 2010 @ 12:16 pm

I’ll try this out with Dharma and see if I can’t work around the issue.
By Jacob, October 23, 2010 @ 3:04 pm

I’ve done an update. Hopefully this will allow the program to return to the forefront and restore the window to maximized when alt-tabbed away. It should also be much easier to install (as it has an installer).
By Joshka, October 24, 2010 @ 3:35 pm

Cheers for the props
By PastorVor, October 24, 2010 @ 4:00 pm

Amazing. Many props. Solves so many problems.
I’m using an HP remote which is basically an MCE. This makes the “TV” button launch (or change focus to) XBMC.
I just want to say many thanks.
By Toastr, November 13, 2010 @ 2:03 pm

Works great, but I cant get the remote to shut down the computer when I preres on on/off button on the remote.

I have EEEBOX 1501 with an MCE remote, and runs Dharma4 with win 7.

Anyone know how to configure the remote to shut down the computer within XBMC?
By Smitty2k1, November 14, 2010 @ 10:11 am

This. Is. Awesome.
Thank you!!!!!
By ub, December 13, 2010 @ 6:53 am

hey, first of all i’d like to thank you for your efforts.
i have a problem using this, i run winxp sp3 and in my ehome folder there is no eshell.exe; when i manually rename the exe provided on this page and copy it into the ehome folder, nothing happens when i push the “start” button. using the installer doesn’t work neither. do i have to install a media center edition of windows in order to get this little tool to work?
thanks in advance
By Jacob, December 13, 2010 @ 7:38 am

Correct, ehshell.exe launches Windows Media Center on the versions of windows that include it. This software is intended as a way override that behavior. You could still use this as a launcher, but you’ll need another utility that takes the green button IR command from the remote and turns it into instructions to run the launcher. There are a number of free tools to do that. Google “windows IR software.”
By Lasse, December 17, 2010 @ 4:10 am

thanks works great im så happy for this…
By Ed v. Schleck, December 17, 2010 @ 9:57 am

That worked perfectly, thx!
By Brendon, December 26, 2010 @ 7:48 am

Just found this. It does exactly what I need it to do, the only thing is that it keeps launching xbmc or bringing xbmc to the foreground if I press the green button and close xbmc or alt+tab.
By pc-nico, December 27, 2010 @ 9:54 pm

Hey thanks for this tool, i like it very much…
I am Using the Tool with my Harmony… Starting XMBC works fine, but take back from taskbar to the front doesn´t work? Anybody a idea?

My System: Win7 32Bit Prof.

thx
By MrSkyline, January 10, 2011 @ 5:15 pm

Thnx a million! this is a great piece of software!
It works with XBMC 10 also (for whoever is wondering)

getting it to the front while the taskbar is in front doesn’t work for me either (XBMC 10 with Win7 Ultimate) but i don’t mind, i also have a wireless mouse, but a remote is better

thnx allot!
By Auldthief, January 12, 2011 @ 2:06 am

Just perfect! U’re The Man! I was wondering can ALL the functions that are accessible using keyboard and mouse be performed with the remote. e.g. How do I right click (in order to change plugin settings etc)? I’ll do away with the keyboard altogether, a dream right now!
By Auldthief, January 16, 2011 @ 7:25 am

Just to let you know, I’ve officially REMOVED windows media center from my windows 7 HTPC after getting this amazing app! Don’t need it anymore! All thanks to you!

PS: I came here to ask how I can right click using the remote!
By Auldthief, January 16, 2011 @ 7:34 am

Got it! The “Guide” Button does it! It was always there! U’ve thought of EVERYTHING!
By Tiz, January 26, 2011 @ 11:08 pm

I love it when people have attention to detail!

Thanks for this one!!

Peace! Y
By Carlos, January 31, 2011 @ 8:03 am

Great program thanks, solved a headache!! The only question that I have is that I use an xbox as extender which I believe uses the ehshell.exe from my PC… I guess that this workaround will not let my xbox connect to my PC or am I wrong??

Thanks again, great work
By Jacob, January 31, 2011 @ 8:27 am

I’m not sure if ehshell.exe is actually used for the media center extender. It very well could be. Ehshell.exe is the media center frontend. There are a couple of other executables that control the extender service, extensibility host, etc. But, I don’t know if they’ll function with a new ehshell.exe
By Mike31, January 31, 2011 @ 11:40 am

Hum, why using another software to lauch XMBC??

Just for information, the “green button” or “media button on keyboards” is automatically assigned to the default software used to open .cda files (audio CD).

If you want to launch XMBC with an MCE remote, you just have to assign XMBC as the default software to open .cda files, and it works.

Hope this help.
By Jacob, January 31, 2011 @ 11:56 am

I wasn’t aware of the .CDA workaround. However, even if you apply it, XBMC still has an issue with returning itself to the foreground when relaunched. The devs could fix this, but as of 10.0, this was still an issue. This launcher runs a few commands to attempt to restore XBMC to the foreground. If the *.CDA association is true, you should suggest to the XBMC team to modify their Windows installer to include an option to remap this association along with adding launch code to restore their window to the foreground if it is already open.
By Prc, February 16, 2011 @ 3:04 am

Hi all, thx a lot for the installer, works fine for me. But now i have one problem, i have to start MS MCE for one time to disable the automatically optimization, cause this feature starts my pc every night. Can anybody tell me how i can start the ms mce after installing the fix, unfortunately i have no backup of the ehome.exe.
Thx in advance
By Jon, March 16, 2011 @ 6:55 am

This seemed to work when I installed it, but now most of the time instead of returning focus to XBMC, it just makes XBMC flash on the taskbar, without becoming responsive to commands from the remote. It still works occasionally, which is strange. (I’m using Win7 Ult x64)
By steven, March 28, 2011 @ 12:46 pm

Fabtastic, brilliant programming. Much appreciated. S, Ireland.
By Codegear, April 12, 2011 @ 7:38 am

You did a great job coding this tool! It doesn’t need to be complicated to be valuable.

Find an add-on that allow switching between XBMC and Windows Media Center when combined with your ehshell.exe replacement at http://adhocinnovations.com/downloads.php?cat=16
By Shaun Meilak, April 23, 2011 @ 5:16 am

Wanna just say thanks so much for this XBMC launcher.

Makes it so much easier to just sit down on the couch and press one button and bangggg XBMC is up on my screen for my viewing pleasure!

Thanks for the mod!
By Bubafu, April 28, 2011 @ 4:17 pm

I love this tool and it works great but my problem is that i can’t start windows media center any more. ehshell.exe and everything else starts xbmc. how to launch media center???

thanks a lot!
By Nadir, May 9, 2011 @ 11:51 pm

Hi manually installe the file. Problem is when I press tv on my hp mce remote it starts xbmc. But actually pressing the start button on remote won’t start xbmc. Any idea how to fix? Using xbmc 10 and win 7.
By Nadir, May 11, 2011 @ 2:24 am

Just as followup to above, when I do start ehshell.exe manually though it does start xbmc but the mce start button does not.
By Andrew, June 11, 2011 @ 6:11 am

hi, loved the modification but do have one hiccup… My kids XBOX is trying to connect and every time it needs to start windows media centre we end up with XBMC instead. WMC has been renabled and I placed the backup file for the exe in the home folder (underscoring the modified one) restarted but it still kicks off XBMC rather than WMC… anyone any ideas, beyond reinstall…
By Jacob, June 11, 2011 @ 8:56 am

Andrew, there are two ways the launcher could have been installed. If you ran the installer, there is a registry entry “[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\ehshell.exe]” with the “Debugger” key entered. Running the uninstaller will remove that. Alternatively, you can go into regedit and remove that key yourself.

If you installed manually, which it sounds like you did, then restoring the backup EXE should be all you needed to do. But, check the registry key in case you ever ran the installer.
By Andrew, June 12, 2011 @ 10:39 pm

Thanks Ill give this a try. is there an uninstaller in the zip? cant see one if there is..
By Jay, July 10, 2011 @ 12:38 am

Thank you for this, by far the easiest solution I’ve found so far.

All, if you want XBMC to open and stay in front without minimizing just add a XBMCLaunchArgs.txt file to your ehome directory containing this command:

“C:\Windows\ehome\ehshell.exe” -fs

It’s worked without fail for me
By dean, July 15, 2011 @ 7:39 am

Thank you so much!!! I finally got everything to work right with my harmony one. You are awesome!!!
By Eran Goldin, July 16, 2011 @ 2:15 am

Just what I needed! Thanks man. Works perfectly, made my life that much better.
By kappa7, July 23, 2011 @ 10:38 am

Thank you fro this great app. I’ve found only a little problem: when xbmc is running, if I press one more time the green button nothing happens (and this is right), but when I exit from XBMC after about 10 seconds XBMC automatically restart! If I press 2 times the green button when XBMC is running, then XBMC will automatically restart 2 times, ecc…

There is a solution to avoid this?
I used the xbmc launcher with the installer.

Thanks
Kappa7
By Jacob Ras, July 30, 2011 @ 5:27 am

Great work, Jacob
By chris, August 14, 2011 @ 10:12 pm

i’m using xp mce 2005 with all the latest updates. not matter what i do, the original ehshell keeps coming back. i don;t see permissions on the file, i am administrator, and i don’t have a dllcache folder. looked at notepad2 instructions and those files don’t exist either.
any ideas?
By Tom, August 31, 2011 @ 6:24 am

I’ve done this but would like to start up Windows 7 Media Center sometimes. Is this still possible as I can’t work out how to do it?
By Andrew, August 31, 2011 @ 10:06 am

Hi again, well did away with all WMC and it entailed. Got XMBC running fin with library artwork etc but re-installed your exe and nothing happens. Green button start on remote launches start me nu… The exe inside the launcher folder inside programs does launch an XBMC when clicked… but Start button no longer does.

Any help appreciated
By andrew, September 1, 2011 @ 1:23 am

Scratch the above… complete plank, did manual install works a treat.
Out of Curiosity what skins are people using on XBMC?
By suitheist, September 8, 2011 @ 10:28 am

This works well to launch xbmc with one press, nut when i try to bring the window back to the front by pressing the windows button again it corrupts xbmc and causes the different sections to move out of position on screen.
By Richard, September 17, 2011 @ 8:32 am

Hey this works perfect for me, although i did have to add one step. I needed to download the little app at http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/112795-context-menu-take-ownership.html which allowed me to take ownership of the ehome folder, which allowed me to change the permissions so I could replace eshell.exe
I’m using Vista 64
Did manual install
Thank you for an excellent little application!
By T800, September 24, 2011 @ 12:39 am

If want to add a 5 second start up delay to XBMC “-d 5″. How do I get this to work with it?
Do I use a XBMCLaunchArgs.txt? If so what do i put in it?
By T800, September 24, 2011 @ 1:52 am

I added a XBMCLaunchArgs.txt in C:\Windows\ehome with just “-d 5″ in it and it didn’t work.
By T800, September 25, 2011 @ 2:46 am

Sussed it. You don’t add anything the the XBMC.exe. You only add the -d switch to the XBMCLaunchArgs.txt.
By Holf, October 16, 2011 @ 2:16 am

This is a fantastic solution. Thanks very much for putting it together. I thought I’d have to do some extra config work afterwards but all I did was run the installer and from that point onwards my ‘Green’ button starts XBMC!
I did leave the default ‘Portable’ option in the installer ticked, and this caused me trouble. But I simply removed all text from the ‘XBMCLaunchArgs.txt’ file in the program folder after installation, and then everything was fine.
Awesome!
By XBMC'er, October 20, 2011 @ 2:45 am

This works great, so excuse me for asking, but how can I get to run Windows media Center 7 now? (Or how can I revert back\uninstall the XBMC Launcher?)

Thanks!
By Anthony, October 24, 2011 @ 2:35 pm

I can’t seem to get it to work, installed twice now, and restarted, nothing.

Vista 64 Home Pre
By CJ, November 24, 2011 @ 11:48 pm

Works flawlessly with the installer. Thanks so much for this, I was quite tired of hitting that button by accident and having to struggle to shut down that bloated program.
By Jase, December 1, 2011 @ 11:02 pm

Is it a requirement that Windows Media Center is installed in Windows 7? Mine isn’t installed and while the XBMCLauncher.exe does launch XBMC, using the green button doesn’t.

Thanks!
By Jones, December 27, 2011 @ 7:19 am

Hi There,

Thanks a million… I struggled a couple of days to find an easy solution to have XBMC launched through the ‘green’ button of my remote and there it is !!

Although I needed to perform a workaround on it… when I pressed the green button it launched Wmplayer and not the Media Center, don’t know why because Windows Media Player is installed on my Windows 7. So, instead of replacing the ehshell.exe under Windows\ehome I placed your ehshell.exe in Windows\Program Files\Windows Media Player\ and renamed it to wmplayer.exe and it works like a charm !!

Thanks again… great stuff !
By Stick, January 9, 2012 @ 12:24 pm

Thanks for this program, it’s great. I use it to run XBMC on my HDTV that is connected to my PC’s second GPU output. The only problem I have is that if the TV is not my current monitor, i need it to switch to that monitor with the command:

“C:\Windows\System32\Displayswith.exe /external”

Is there any way I can get this command to run before your launcher loads XBMC?

Thanks.
By Jacob, January 9, 2012 @ 12:48 pm

You’d have to add that command to the source code and recompile the launcher to have it run before.
By Assmonkey, January 14, 2012 @ 10:19 am

For some reason it doesn’t work very well on my Win 7 SP1 Ultimate with XBMC.

When I click the Green button, it launches but not in portable mode even though -p is in the args-file.
By Alexandre, January 19, 2012 @ 7:57 am

Thanks for the program, worked fine here and saved me some time
By Mike, January 25, 2012 @ 2:19 am

Great tweak, worked perfectly with win 7 and my brando usb wifi keyboard. Thanks