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How to re-enable Windows Media Center in the Default Programs control panel on Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate

  • Artigo

Yesterday, I posted some information about a Group Policy setting that can prevent Windows Media Center from launching on a Windows Vista Home Premium or Ultimate system.  Since then, I have heard from a couple of people who have been receiving the same error message but who did not have this Group Policy setting enabled on their systems.  After some further investigation, I found another possible cause of this type of error that I wanted to describe here as well.

Description of the issue

To summarize some information from my previous post, it is possible that launching Windows Vista Media Center will fail and will instead display the following error message:

  • Title: Windows Media Center
  • Text: Windows cannot open this program because it has been prevented by a software restriction policy. For more information contact your system administrator.

The dialog looks like this:

I looked at the startup code for Windows Media Center, and found that in addition to the Group Policy setting that I previously described, it is also possible for this error dialog to appear if Windows Media Center is marked as disabled in the Set Program Access and Computer Defaults control panel on Windows Vista.

How to work around the issue

You can use the following steps to enable Windows Media Center in the Set Program Access and Computer Defaults control panel if it is currently disabled:

  1. Click on the Start menu and choose Default Programs
  2. Click on the item named Set Program Access and Computer Defaults
  3. Choose the Custom configuration
  4. Under the Choose a default media player item, make sure that the box to the right of the Windows Media Center item that is labeled Enable access to this program is checked

Note - you do not have to select the radio button to the left of the Windows Media Center to make it the default media player if you don't want to, but the Enable check box must be checked or Windows Media Center will refuse to launch on your system.

What is happening behind the scenes

The Enable access to this program check box for the Windows Media Center Item in the Set Program Access and Computer Defaults control panel will result in the following value being changed in the registry on Windows Vista:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\Media\Windows Media Center\InstallInfo]
IconsVisible

If the IconsVisible value is set to 0, then Windows Media Center will not run on a Windows Vista system.

<update date="10/7/2011"> Fixed broken link to image embedded in this post. </update>

Comments

  • Anonymous
    October 06, 2011
    In Windows 7 Pro. can you follow these same steps?

  • Anonymous
    October 07, 2011
    Hi Dutchman37 - Yes, it looks like the same steps apply equally to both Windows Vista and Windows 7.

  • Anonymous
    December 20, 2013
    apakah bisa langkah ini di gunakan di windows 8.1 pro?

  • Anonymous
    December 20, 2013
    Hi yuan - Yes, the information in this blog post should still apply to the version of Windows Media Center in Windows 8.1.

  • Anonymous
    May 05, 2014
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    May 05, 2014
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    February 07, 2015
    It also works in W8.1. Media Center stopped recording or opening 01/25/2015 inexplicably and when I spoke to Microsoft they wanted $$$ to help find the problem that I had to pay $$$ for. I've tried several other "solutions", and this is the first one that quickly solved the problem! Thanks So Much!!!

  • Anonymous
    April 09, 2015
    Did not work for me, the computer keeps going back to windows media player.

  • Anonymous
    April 09, 2015
    Hi Jeff - I'm sorry, but I'm not sure I understand your comment.  This blog post is about Windows Media Center, not media player.  Can you describe the exact behavior that you're seeing and what steps you tried, and I'll see if it is something I can help with?

  • Anonymous
    September 02, 2015
    still telling me the same eror message.. A checkbox is greyed out.

  • Anonymous
    September 03, 2015
    The comment has been removed