So a guy laid this amazing information on me yesterday, and I have WatchedFolders working beautifully now.  This method works on all versions of Media Center, released and unreleased, and across versions.  It does not require any software, scripts, or anything like that.  It does not require the machines be joined to a domain either.  You probably should not do this unless you're behind a hardware firewall or NAT (like a cable/DSL router).

So here goes:

1. Have both machines on the same network.  If the machines can't ping each other by name, this will not work.
2. Share your recorded TV folder on each machine.  Give "Everyone" full control on the share and on the folder itself.  You can name the share the default, "Recorded TV" if you want, that's what I do.
3. Open regedit, and go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Service\Recording.  Find the entry "WatchedFolders" and open it up.
4. On each machine, add a new line to this entry at the bottom, pointing to the other machine's Recorded TV share.  For example, see below the steps.  You have to do this on both machines.
5. Click start, run, and open gpedit.msc.  Navigate under Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\Security Options, and find "Network access:  Let Everyone permissions apply to anonymous users".  Open that up, and change the setting to enabled.  Do this on both machines.
6. Reboot, and check your recorded TV.  Shows from both MCE's should show up on both MCE's!

The sample Watched Folders:

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Recorded TV
D:\drop
\\othermachinename\Recorded TV

That's it!  Worked for me, first try.

-aseigler

 

Great post!  Much simpler than the solution that I just posted.  Thanks for the tip!

ive tried to make this work but i still cant get my network share of recorded tv to show up on either media center pc.

anyone got any ideas to what im missing out.

pls help

 

Sorry I missed these two posts.

This method worked great for me.  When I say give everyone full control, I mean on the share level and the NTFS level.

On the sharing tab of the "Recorded TV" folder, change the option to "Share this folder".  Then click the permissions button, and check "Full Control" for the Everyone group.  Then go to the security tab, and add the Everyone group with "Full Control" permissions.

Ok maybe Im just an idiot but I just cant seem to get this to work. I did everyting it said in the first part of the post, nothing. Then I read the last post and I thought hey that must be my problem. So I went left clicked on the recorded tv folder made sure share this folder was clicked, and it was but there is no permissions button or security tab in this dialog anywhere why? Am I missing something, please help me it would be appreciated.

Do you have a security tab at all?  If not, is your drive formatted FAT32?

Do you have a sharing tab?  If not, I have no idea what to tell you.  I'm not that familiar with the XP UI quirks, but perhaps somebody else reading this is and can help.

-aseigler

Thanks for the reply, when I bring up the properties menu for the recorded tv folder I do get a sharing tab but no security tab. My drive file system reports as NTFS. I am running Windows MCE 2004 SP2. I dont think its an SP2 issue because I dont remember having a security tab before the update either although I could be wrong. I really want this to work I have three media centers on my network it would be so great if this worked.

Alex334,

You probably see the sharing when you right click on the folder, actually probably security and sharing.  In the options page, you will probably also see something to the effect of, "Allow network users to modify my files" (I may be a little off), but something along those lines.  That seems to work the same as the security tab.

I have a similar problem in which I have two MCE 2004 boxes, one in the basement and one in the living room.  The living room unit was the first MCE box that I used and it does not have SP2 installed, while the basement unit does have SP2.  Now the interesting thing is that I am able to view my recorded programs from the basement system, but I can't do the same from the living room system.  I am using the Shared Recorded TV program that I downloaded from here and tried the configuration settings mentioned at the top of this thread but no go.

I am able to ping by name and access the recordedTV shares from both boxes without prompting for a password and both systems are on the same workgroup.

It's a little frustrating as there are times when I want to watch the shows that are recorded on the basement system on the living room system.

Anyone had a similar experience and found a fix for this?

Thanks.

Jup

I tried this method and it did not work at first.   But the above was the other half of the puzzle that I had been trying to figure out on my own, and now I have it working.   I don't know if the difference is new security measures in SP2/2005 or what, but this is what I had to do...

In regedit go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\lanmanserver\parameters

There's a key NullSessionShares.   Edit the key and add the name of your share (e.g. "Recorded TV" without the quotes).  

I had found this parameter but was unable to do anything with it until I found the above post about how to make everyone=anonymous. 

 

Thank you so much Ive been waiting for this it finally works. Now I have media center 2005 up and running perfectly and all four of my media centers share there recordeed tv its so great.

I have a (2) brand new computers with news installations of MCE 2005 up and running. I have made all the changes discuessed in this thread. I am receiving a ehshell.exe - Common Lanuguage Runtime Debugging Services Error when attempting to use Recorded TV.When I click on the main "My TV" button and it shows the latest 4-5 recordings, everything works fine. If I click of the "Recorded TV" button and either scroll through the different recordings or attempt to play a recording I receive the below error":

Application has generated an exception that could not be handled.

Process id -0xfa4 (4004), Thread id=0xfb0 (4016)

Click OK to terminate the applcation
Click Cancel to debug the application

If I click OK or CANCEL, MCE crashes.

My main Media Center has multiple drives and I have designated one for all my recorded tv. I have created a shared called "Recorded TV". Therefore, I am not using the default location. Could this be a permissions issue?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

OK. Here is my situation. I purchased a secondary 250GB SATA Hard Drive for both storage and performance issues. I have found both live TV and Recorded TV performs better when running on a secondary hard drive that does not have the OS. Therefore I changed the default Record TV location from:

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Recorded TV

I created a network share on the new hard drive called "Recorded TV". The new location is:

R:\Recorded TV

Everything works perfectly other than Shared Recorded TV on my other (2) media centers. I have followed on the instructions found in this thread. I continue to receive the error onlined in the post prior to this. I can see all the recorded tv episodes but when I try to interact with the
"Recorded TV" page I receive the error. Now, If I change the shared folder back to the default location list above everything seems to work fine. 

Does anyone know what would be causing this behavior? 

Thanks for the help! 

I have two MCE PC's configed as of now

LivingRoom MC ^ Bedroom MC

I got both MC's to share recorded TV fine ....but the  BedRoom MC is diplaying it's own recordings Twice..CKCO ,CKCO..

Were have I gone Wrong?

I Uninstalled SRTV on both PC's (del. StartupApps) and the bedroom MC is still diplaying  Single Recordeings Twice  2x.

EDIT:

Fieed Prob: by deleting Maven program folder, registries,

Everything is a charm!!

As a note on XP file sharing... XP Pro defaults to a 98/ME style of file sharing it calls 'simple file sharing.'  Sometimes you must disable this to get access to the folder permissions on the NTFS level... If simple file sharing IS enabled you won't see a permissions button in the Folder Sharing Properties dialog.

=> My Computer | Tools | Folder Options | View Tab:  Uncheck the last item, "Use simple file sharing"

This may or may not be related to the complete solution for the WatchedFolders but I wanted to clear that up...