Help Files

Your first source of support for the Windows XP Media Center PC Edition should be the Help files.  These Help files are much improved over those included in previous versions of Windows.  To get to the Help files, tap Start / Help and Support. You'll see help from the most likely responses, optional full text searches as well the the Microsoft Knowledge Base.  If you still don't see the answer, you can forward your question on to the Microsoft online support team or one of the newsgroups.

Other Resources - Windows XP Media Center PC Edition

For additional information on helpful applications, click or tap here for our Tools page with free search engines, virus-checks, etc.

Windows XP Media Center PC Edition How-to Articles

Find out how to get the most out of your Media Center PC experience. These how-to articles are grouped by topic.

Be sure to check out your Media Center PC manufacturer's website as well.  Many have excellent resources available as well as support, FAQs and Knowledge Bases.

Newsgroups and Message Boards

A favorite way to get expert help is by posting to one of the many technical support newsgroups on the Microsoft servers.  To receive more support and information on many technologies, including the Media Center PC and related products and software, please visit the Microsoft public newsgroups at news://msnews.microsoft.com.

The best way to access these newsgroups is by using a newsreader such as Outlook Express, Agent, Gravity or XNews, to name a few.  Since Outlook Express is available on most computers, it's a good way to start.  For help on configuring Outlook Express to get all the newsgroups you might want to read or follow, the following will help.

Post your question to other Media Center PC users who understand this new technology.

Newsgroups are a wonderful way to get help using peer-to-peer support.  You'll find many MVPs available to help fix problems and direct you to more support.

How to Configure Outlook Express as the news reader.

Full directions for accessing the Microsoft news servers using Outlook Express are as follows. If you prefer, you can access them from here, but it's generally recommended that they be set up on your own computer using either Outlook Express or another news reader.  Bookmark this page to return easily:

news://msnews.microsoft.com.windows/Media Centerpc

news://msnews.microsoft.com.windows/Media Centerpc.developer

If you prefer to use your browser to access the web-based message boards, or don't have access to a newsreader client such as Outlook Express or Agent, use this link - Web-based groups

To set up newsgroups on your computer -

Open Outlook Express / Tools/ Accounts / Add / News and follow the wizard.  The server name is msnews.microsoft.com - no password or logon required.  Once finished, when you hit the Close button on the Internet Accounts window, you'll be asked if you want to download newsgroups.  Say yes, then once downloaded, you can type in mediacenter (or any other subject you like) in the top window and subscribe to the groups you want to follow. 

To see answers to posts, you can either click on the plus sign (+) next to the original post, or to avoid having to do this all the time, you can set OE to automatically expand messages.  Open OE / Tools / Options and on the Read tab, click "Automatically expand grouped messages."

     Tip  -  Since you don't see the full name of the newsgroups when you download, hover your cursor over the line between Newsgroups and Description on the title line.  Once it changes to a double arrow, left click and hold and drag the line to the right until you can see more of the newsgroups.

You may also want to make sure your news message store isn't too big.  You can go to Tools / Options / Maintenance / Clean Up Now button and Compact them occasionally to use less room.

If you ever want to try to re-download the messages, right click the newsgroup / properties / Local File Tab and click Reset.  Once you've seen what you want, in OE, click Edit / CatchUp and then repeat the above to compact them.

Many ISPs provide other news server access as well.  These servers generally either originate or propagate newsgroups from specific sources.  Check with your ISP to get the correct settings.

More Newsgroup Help

Another way to access the newsgroups is through the following site, http://microsoft.com/WindowsXP/expertzone/focuson/mediacenter.asp, click on Windows XP Media Center PC Edition Newsgroup, or just click here to go directly to the web-based newsgroup.  This is a way to stay in touch when you don't have access to nntp.

Since you're already at the Expert Zone, check out the other articles and tips and tricks.  The Expert Zone is a great source of support for Windows XP and related products.  The Expert Zone is an excellent start to finding articles, how-to's, tips and tricks from other users as well as links to other Microsoft sites.

Before posting, take a minute to read http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm

This will help you get the most out of your posts and make it easier for others to help with your questions.

http://www.google.com/groups is yet another excellent resource for posts from many other news servers.