I've looked and asked EVERYWHERE ELSE I know to... been through Dell Tech Support (essentially clueless)... Posted at "The Green Button" forum, on the Dell Forum, on Microsoft's Vista forum, done multiple internet searches, and RE-INSTALLED Vista from scratch half a dozen times to get rid of this bug, only to have it crop back up after a few days, for no apparent reason, each time.
Every time since I began upgrading to Vista in early March, a few days into my new Vista installation, just as I'm settling in and getting the programs I want recorded scheduled, and so forth, Media Center starts giving me a repeated problem that will neither let me play recorded content, nor record new programs. The error message I get (for which Microsoft has NO DATABASE INFORMATION they're willing to admit or share) is...
"APPLICATION FAILURE: A critical Windows Media Center process has failed. Please restart the computer and try again. If the problem persists, contact your hardware manufacturer for assistance."
(I have run Device Manager on ALL my hardware and everything checks out.)
I found ONE OTHER POST with this problem on Microsoft's webforum; it was more than 2 months old; and there was NOT A SINGLE RESPONSE TO IT. This reminds me of when I was stuck with MCE 2004 and I kept running into the "MCE is missing files needed to display video" error message, which was similarly unsupported and I could never find a fix for, other than to reinstall the OS... But with my Vista being an upgrade (and although I know you showed us how to do a Clean install, I have reasons for still going through my original XP, such as keeping the rights to other software I bought with the computer)... Plus, Dell shipped an "upgrade assistant" DVD that gets the computer ready for the upgrade, and everything works fine -- for the first few days.
This most recent time, I was having permissions issues with the documents folders and some other folders on my C: drive, and wasn't able to change them individually, for some reason, even at administrator level... So I clicked on the Drive, itself, and globally changed permissions to allow me access to all folders. After that, MCE quit working. But the previous time, it quit after I just added external hard drives as "watched folders" for TV (I have A LOT of old programs saved on several external drives)...
At any rate, after nothing else would fix the issue, I actually did a System Restore to take me back to the point before I changed permissions for the drive, but that DIDN'T fix the issue with Media Center. This has GOT TO BE the hinkiest component Windows has ever incorporated.
It would seem to me, at any rate, that they'd offer more support for it. When you go to the Tech Support section on their Website, there's VERY LITTLE support offered for Media Center, and NOWHERE can you find a list of the error messages. It seems they just don't consider that when people buy a computer with a faster processor, extram RAM and a dual TV tuner in it, they JUST MIGHT have a use for Windows that highly incorporates Media Center!
You may be my last hope, at this point!
Do you have ANY THOUGHTS or anywhere you can POINT ME?
Jeff Hayes
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