Windows Vista MCE remote in XP pro

[therapist]

I am building my permanent HTPC I have playing around with different hardware and think I have it finished. I was using the remote that comes with Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-1600 with the workarounds I found. I thought it would be easier\better to use a MCE remote when I finished my setup so I bought the WinTV-HVR-1600 MC-Kit which comes with a MCE remote for my second tuner. I read you can use MCE remotes with XP pro. I hooked it up and it detects but it can't find the driver. I have searched on the internet for the drivers and everyone says to download Windows Update "Update Rollup 2 for eHome Infrared Receiver for Windows XP and tried that but no luck.

It is the black remote and was told by someone else that it only works with Vista. Anybody here have any ideas or have gotten it to work?

Thank you for any help.

[gplasky]

XP Pro with SP2 already has the driver for the MCE remote. It's the receiver that determines the driver needed. It should show up as an eHome receiver in Device Manager.

Gerry

[GTwannabe]

Depends on the brand of MCE receiver. The Microsoft-branded version works with SP2 out of the box. 3rd party receivers have their own drivers. I have a Pinacle MCE remote/receiver, but the receiver will not work at all under XP (no drivers, Vista only). I just use my Microsoft MCE receivers (remotes broke) with the Pinacle MCE remote and everything works fine.

[gplasky]

Yes. That's why I mentioned it's dependant on the receiver. I have an MCE receiver from Microsoft and I have one from nVidia Dual TV. Both of those work with XP SP2 or MCE or Vista. I have a Ione off-brand that requires it's own driver. And because of that it can't control Sage but it can control MCE.

Gerry

[therapist]

I will check the hauppauge disc. I just downloaded the drivers for the card off the internet and didn't use the disc. The weird thing is Xp pro recognizes what it is but doesn't have the driver. In the past if it didn't have the driver for something it would say usb device detected.

[Article22]

Yeah I had the same problem with the new Vista remote which I believe will replace the OEM MCE 2005 one.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=583848

When you plug it in you get a message asking for a driver but it won't find one automatically and they are no drivers with the package.

The funny thing is that the remote uses the same codes and standard as the older one as I am currently using it with the old IR Receiver which came with the OEM MCE 2005 remote.

Very annoying.

[smdear]

I am now able to use the infrared receiver that shipped with the WinTV PVC-150 (Microsoft eHome infrared transceiver) with SageTV Client). I find that most of the buttons on my Hauppage remote work correctly (fast forward, pause, stop, rewind, direction buttons, select, numeric buttons).

The fix is copied from an article I found at
-123/ehome-infrared-transceiver-drivers-29355/
(ikarmona's posting of 2007-10-15)
Thanks !

So here is what I did to progress a little:
1. Install the XP Update 2 for IR (KB912024). This will install the irbus.sys in your drivers dir.
2. Found the original irbus.inf file that came inside the update (I guess that one can extract it, but I found it in my system)
3. Plug in your IR receiver. This will result that you'll have an "?" besides the 'eHome Inf...' in the DeviceManager
4. Select properties -> Details and you'll see the VID and PID which your connected device (IR remote) is presenting itself. The original irbus.inf did not have these VID/PID s.
5. Now, copy the irbus.inf and irbus.sys from step 2 to some temp directory and edit the irbus.inf. Insert the below two lines in the appropriate places:
%USB\VID_045E&PID_006D.DeviceDesc%=IrBus_V2, USB\VID_1784&PID_0006 ; Topseed BB
and
ExcludeFromSelect=USB\VID_1784&PID_0006 ; Topseed BB
(in case you have different numbers for VID and PID use them in the example above)
6. Go to Device Manager and do Update Driver to the 'eHome IR Receiver'. Use 'Have disk' option and specify your new irbus.inf file in the temp directory.
7. Reboot.

Doing the steps above made the "?" to disappear and the Device Manager is not complaining any more. Fireing up the Media Portal I can now use the remote but the recognized buttons are very limited. Only the UP,DOWN, LEFT,RIGHT,and OK buttons work properly. Pressing the other buttons I get no response. I wish I also had the BACK and INFO buttons work but unfortunately they don't.

Can anyone help further?

I guess this IR receiver is indeed designed for Vista. Does anyone know if we can port the Vista driver to the XP? cybermage: can you please elaborate more on this "CIR device". I couldn't find anything.

Thanks,
Izak