When setting up media center on a television, the green button on your remote is a convenient way of jumping back to your home menu.  However with the growing popularity of add-in launchers for apps such as Boxee and Hulu Desktop, you may not want to deal with exiting each application manually or deal with the various applications still playing in the background if you hit the green button and launch media center.  I wrote a small .net app that sits in the system tray and monitors running processes.  You can specify which processes you want to automatically kill when media center is launched.  This is a stand-alone exe, so there is no need to install anything, just throw a link in your startup folder if you want it to auto launch. There is a text file called ProcessList.txt that must reside in the same folder as the executable file.  Just add a process name to the list and it will be killed when media center is launched…as simple as that.  The program is free, just comment if you like it or want to see any changes.

http://rapidshare.com/files/359333018/MCPriority.zip

You sir are my hero. This has been one of my biggest problems using hulu and boxee with WMC. The kids have no problem watching netflix in WMC and switching to boxee to watch other cartoons but they NEVER actually exit boxee... so when I come by and the machine resumes from sleep, lauches WMC and boxee is still running back behind it. This not only solves the sleep/resume problem but also makes the green button work like I always wished it would. ABSOLUTE BRILLIANCE! I am installing this.

Let me know if it works well for you.  There is a text file you can edit to add any process to the "kill list" so it is not limited to Hulu and Boxee.

Seems to work for me. You might talk to the guy who built hulu desktop integration too. It would be awesome if there was one single piece of software I could use to integrate boxee and hulu desktop into my WMC and have my green button kill hulu/boxee return me to WMC. Likewise the hulu dsektop integration thingey could also use the mod someone else posted in this form that insures that hulu desktop gets the full focus/stays on top of the taskbar when its up. Integrating these chunks together would be a beautiful win.

I would LOVE to use this with MediaBrowser and Media Player Classic as my external player. If i press anything other than the BACK button, MPC gets lost behind MCE and I have no way of killing it or recovering it without a mouse. (I am remote only guy). I have just set it up to kill mpc-hc but whenever I try to launch a video file from Media Browser, MPC loads then is killed instantly. I tried having MPC and MCE open in windowed mode with nothing playing. A press on the green button does kill MPC. How can I get it not to kill MPC when I launch from Media Browser?? :)

The application in its current form checks to see when the media center process is running, and in your case I believe mediabrowser and media center are running concurrently.  As I understand it you are using windows media center classic in order to play files that will not play native in media center.  The fix I have found for playing mkvs and other video/audio types natively in windows media center is by installing the shark codec pack.  Everything plays inside media player and you do not need to launch classic: http://shark007.net/win7codecs.html 

 

Hey, thanks for the reply. MCE plays all my .mkv content out of the box with just Haalli splitter and AC3Filter and MS video codecs. The only reason I use MPC not the MCE media player is because I use Reclock and MCE media player does not support Reclock. Most of my content is 23.976 fps and it runs jerky on my 50hz TV. Reclock with MPC sorts this out a treat. I hate having to use MPC, it's great with a keyboard and mouse but can suck when you rely solely on a remote and impressing your wife and friends! Is MediaBrowser issuing some other command after I hit play that makes MCPriority think I have hit the green button? Thanks in advance :)

 This App is exactly what I need!  This is my first few minutes on thegreenbutton and I just posted a post in the general forum.  This should solve it!  Thanks so much.

wow ! it's really a wonderful tool

and ...how can  i download this tool ?

there is a link in the first message to the zip file on rapidshare.

MCPriority was reviewed on Hack7mc.com!  Read the full review here:

http://www.hack7mc.com/2010/03/mcpriority-closes-hulu-boxeee-and-more-when-returning-to-media-center.html

 I certainly see the potential in this software!  Very clever!  I, however, am having a problem.  Not so much with the software, but how WMC reacts.  When I have it open an application (say, Hulu), it minimizes and starts up the application.  After that, though, WMC likes to re-maximize almost instantly, thus prompting the MCPriority software to kill Hulu before I'm done with it.  What can I do to keep WMC minimized until I press the little green button?

You do not want media center minimized, you want it to close while the other apps are running.  Try using these for hulu and boxee:

http://boxeewmc.teknowebworks.com/

http://huluwmc.teknowebworks.com/

If you are just looking to launch Hulu and Boxee, there is a great app that takes care of the launch and auto close here:

http://thegreenbutton.com/forums/t/87094.aspx

MCPriority is customizable for any application (I use it for skype as well) but the apps at link above cover the open and close of Hulu and Boxee which is really nice.