Is there any workaround for the missing group policy editor (gpedit.msc) in Visa Home Premium so that I can share recorded tv?

I just installed vista home premium. Imagine my shock when I discovered that you apparently cannot share tv with it because there is no group policy editor. Surely, there must be a work around. Can you tell me what it is, please?

It is absolutely essential that a workaround be made if one does not currently exist. This is a _core_ feature that makes Media Center worthwhile; without tv sharing, media center is no better than a dvr. Whoever made this design decision must not have been aware of the problem they were creating. Nowhere in the marketing literature does it say that Home Premium lacks a group policy editor. What's next, Vista Home Premium Plus with Regedit?

Please tell me that there is a workaround, because if there isn't, then I wasted a bunch of time "upgrading" to vista and must now return to home premium.

Either that, or illegally reuse my vista ultimate license key.

Hi, I am currently using Vista Home Premium to share Recorded TV between a z545 and a z558 without any problems --except for the "Recorded TV not refreshing w/o closing MCE" issue.

To enable some of those policy settings mentioned on here you can modify the registry settings directly. I
have included below the policy setting and the corresponding registry key.

1.
Policy Setting: Network access: Shares that can be accessed anonymously
Corresponding Registry Key: HKLM/System/CurrentControlSet/Services/LanManServer/
What to Change: Set NullSessionShares (a REG_MULTI_SZ) to include the name of your recorded tv share

2.Policy Setting: Network access: Do not allow anonymous enumeration of SAM accounts and shares"
Corresponding Registry Key: HKLM/System/CurrentControlSet/Control/LSA/
What to Change: Set RestrictAnonymousSAM (a DWORD) to be 0

3. If you are using autologon and that account does not have a password then do the following:

Policy Setting: [don't know off-hand which policy setting this would be]
Corresponding Registry Key: HKLM/System/CurrentControlSet/Control/LSA/
What to Change: Set limitBlankPasswordUse (a DWORD) to be 0
Notes: I can't remember if this is to be done on the computer sharing the recorded tv or the computer trying to access the share. Either way
it allows an account to be used over the network w/o a password. Security/safety gurus can jump all over this one but my autologon account
has no passwords [shrug]

<rant>

Yes, it was a stupid bone-headed lameass move not to include policy editor in Premium but that's Microsoft for you --let's create value by removing features

</rant>

 

Not that I would reccomend it, but you can turn off password protected sharing (in the network sharing center) and it will allow your other media centers to connect to the share.  If you do this make sure you have a hardware firewall that is preventing access to this machine from the internet.

I don't understand your probem here as I've been happily sharing recorded tv between my home premium m/cs for ages. I just make the folder network shareable and then add from the VMC ui. They appear under Videos though - and I do it over a wifi network.

The only issue I had was when trying to watch a tv prog that was currently recording (i.e. timeshifted). It didn't like that at all, said the file was corrupt, and since it was a big footie (soccer) match I thought I'd blown my recording, but I was okay, phew.

Gordon Moore:

I don't understand your probem here as I've been happily sharing recorded tv between my home premium m/cs for ages. I just make the folder network shareable and then add from the VMC ui. They appear under Videos though - and I do it over a wifi network.

The only issue I had was when trying to watch a tv prog that was currently recording (i.e. timeshifted). It didn't like that at all, said the file was corrupt, and since it was a big footie (soccer) match I thought I'd blown my recording, but I was okay, phew.

They want the recordings to show up under recorded tv, not the videos area.

Yeah, so...that's not a supported feature, so I can't comment on how to do it. Sorry.

>They want the recordings to show up under recorded tv, not the videos area.

That would be great if Media Center allowed you to view recorded TV programs from any drive or any computer under "recorded tv" and not "pictures and videos".

I have to say that if I were to pick one Vista feature that needs major improvement, that would be Vista's media library management. Currently, folders and files show up under categories that you don't want them to appear under, and files (i.e. dvr-ms files) don't show up under other categories ("recorded tv") that you do want them to show up under.

thank you very much sir. i've made the changes (yet to test, but i'm sure it will work).

only thing that was a bit of a curve was that i had to add the nullsessionshares key, but that was easy enough to do.

JackLuminous:

Hi, I am currently using Vista Home Premium to share Recorded TV between a z545 and a z558 without any problems --except for the "Recorded TV not refreshing w/o closing MCE" issue.

To enable some of those policy settings mentioned on here you can modify the registry settings directly. I
have included below the policy setting and the corresponding registry key.

1.
Policy Setting: Network access: Shares that can be accessed anonymously
Corresponding Registry Key: HKLM/System/CurrentControlSet/Services/LanManServer/
What to Change: Set NullSessionShares (a REG_MULTI_SZ) to include the name of your recorded tv share

2.Policy Setting: Network access: Do not allow anonymous enumeration of SAM accounts and shares"
Corresponding Registry Key: HKLM/System/CurrentControlSet/Control/LSA/
What to Change: Set RestrictAnonymousSAM (a DWORD) to be 0

3. If you are using autologon and that account does not have a password then do the following:

Policy Setting: [don't know off-hand which policy setting this would be]
Corresponding Registry Key: HKLM/System/CurrentControlSet/Control/LSA/
What to Change: Set limitBlankPasswordUse (a DWORD) to be 0
Notes: I can't remember if this is to be done on the computer sharing the recorded tv or the computer trying to access the share. Either way
it allows an account to be used over the network w/o a password. Security/safety gurus can jump all over this one but my autologon account
has no passwords [shrug]

<rant>

Yes, it was a stupid bone-headed lameass move not to include policy editor in Premium but that's Microsoft for you --let's create value by removing features

</rant>

 

Well, I tried these suggestions, but they just don't work. I also tried turning off password protected sharing; that doesn't work either.

I can use the "videos" folder, but I can't make the TV show up in my Recorded TV section.

Unless there's another work around, I will simply reuse my Ultimate license. I've paid for two copies of home premium which are now useless; I'll be darned if I'm going to pay MSFT even more.

<RANT>

Sharing TV between Media Centers may not be a supported out of the box feature, but it is clearly a supported feature for power users on XP. For example, TweakMCE supports UNC paths for watched folders.

Moroever, it (relatively easily) works on both XP MCE and Vista Ultimate.

Removing this feature from Vista Home Premium shows a lack of respect for MSFT's most important customers, the early adopters.

This is the type of thing that makes me look forward to competition from Apple.

</RANT>

JessZahn:

Yeah, so...that's not a supported feature, so I can't comment on how to do it. Sorry.

Okay, so it must be possible... I just love the way Microsoft responds to the requests/needs of their user base.

MrTybalt:

JessZahn:

Yeah, so...that's not a supported feature, so I can't comment on how to do it. Sorry.

Okay, so it must be possible... I just love the way Microsoft responds to the requests/needs of their user base.

At least they respond, you should see the debacle going on around some of the Treo forums about how Palm has been blowing off their power-user base and promising a firmware update for a while, and now will only release the update a week before the phone reaches its End-of-Life date.  I'd have expected it to be the other way around really, a huge company like MS blowing off the consumer, and Palm taking care of their userbase.

Frankly, I think I'm responding in the right way. I am taking note of your request, keeping it for me if it's in my area or passing it along to the right person, and considering the feature for a future release.

As an MS employee, I can't advocate hacks or workarounds.

First, thanks for being on these forums. I don't envy your position, since you inevitably will be on the receiving end of Media Centers rants; this is where many turn after experiencing some sort of frustration or another. The single thing you are most guilty of is being one of the only MS Media Center employees who is easily accessible to the general public.

Second, your close interaction with us should give you a competitive advantage within the Media Center team -- you better than any other MS Media Center employee are poised to understand the needs of your customer base and can help MS make the best products possible. To the extent that MS is rationally run, this should be a great boon for your career.

Third, on the specific point in question, I'll submit for you a couple of links from MS program managers who have advocated explicit workarounds for MS products:

http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/2006/04/29/586961.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/2005/12/16/504906.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/2006/06/04/617449.aspx
http://mediacenter.mattgoyer.com/archives/2005/10/21/1007
http://mediacenter.mattgoyer.com/archives/2006/08/23/1170 (just for reference as a timeline)

Thanks again for your participation in this community! Despite any snarkiness you hear, even the most jaded of us appreciate your presence, at the very least because it offers a place to vent.

I know that Aaron and Matt (and others, too) have advocated workarounds in the past...I can only say that it would very much be frowned upon and a CLM (career-limiting move) if I did that now. :-)

I kind of enjoy the rants though, I appreciate the passion.

JackLuminous:

Hi, I am currently using Vista Home Premium to share Recorded TV between a z545 and a z558 without any problems --except for the "Recorded TV not refreshing w/o closing MCE" issue.

To enable some of those policy settings mentioned on here you can modify the registry settings directly. I
have included below the policy setting and the corresponding registry key.

1.
Policy Setting: Network access: Shares that can be accessed anonymously
Corresponding Registry Key: HKLM/System/CurrentControlSet/Services/LanManServer/
What to Change: Set NullSessionShares (a REG_MULTI_SZ) to include the name of your recorded tv share

2.Policy Setting: Network access: Do not allow anonymous enumeration of SAM accounts and shares"
Corresponding Registry Key: HKLM/System/CurrentControlSet/Control/LSA/
What to Change: Set RestrictAnonymousSAM (a DWORD) to be 0

3. If you are using autologon and that account does not have a password then do the following:

Policy Setting: [don't know off-hand which policy setting this would be]
Corresponding Registry Key: HKLM/System/CurrentControlSet/Control/LSA/
What to Change: Set limitBlankPasswordUse (a DWORD) to be 0
Notes: I can't remember if this is to be done on the computer sharing the recorded tv or the computer trying to access the share. Either way
it allows an account to be used over the network w/o a password. Security/safety gurus can jump all over this one but my autologon account
has no passwords [shrug]

<rant>

Yes, it was a stupid bone-headed lameass move not to include policy editor in Premium but that's Microsoft for you --let's create value by removing features

</rant>

 

It turns out these stops are correct except #1. the key is located at  HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\lanmanserver\parameters. (Note the addition of parameters.) If oyu don't have the NullSessionShares key there, you ADD it NullSessionShares, make it a REG_MULTI_SZ, and then put in your share name.