I have spent many nights searching thru the forums to find a way to remove a lot of the unwanted tiles from my start menu in Vista media center.  Honestly, I would like to remove all strips except "Tasks", "Online Media", and "TV + Movies" and add a custom strip with "music library", "picture library", and "video library" tiles.  There are also a few tiles I would like to remove from the "TV + Movies" strip.

I have a seen a few posts regarding doing similar things on MCE2005.  I also found a couple regarding an app someone was developing to remove default strips from VMC, but they both seemed to suddenly die with no app being posted.

Is what I want to do possible?  I know it is possible to create a custom strip, but can I have the default tiles listed in a custom strip (such as "music library", "picture library", and "video library")?  Is it possible to completely remove default strips (such as "Music" and "Pictures + Videos")?  Finally, is it possible to remove default tiles (such as "more TV" and "live TV")?

I don't mind if I have to do this manually in the registry, but I completely out of places to look on how to do any of these things.

I appreciate any help provided.  Thanks!

Nothing either way from anyone?  Should this be in a different area of the forums?

Here are some basic customizations you can do (removing sports strip, TV strip, and MCE Spotlight): http://www.mediacenterguides.com/index.php?title=Menu_Customization.

http://mediacenterguides.com/custom_ui  *Edit* - link has been changed.

Here is more stuff you can do, I haven't tried anything from here, so I can't say for sure how well it works - if you have any luck, please report back: http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/pages/customizing-the-windows-media-center-start-menu-in-windows-vista.aspx

This is a start towards what I want.  Following your first link, I followed the directions to delete the MCESpotlight Menu.  Deleteing the MCESpotlight Menu removes all the "move" tiles (such as "more TV", "more music", "more pictures", and "more videos") but it also removes the "explore" tile from within the Online Spotlight strip.  The reason I want to remove the "more" tiles is because I could access all those things from there if I wanted to.  Result: I want to remove all the "more" tiles while leaving access to these applications in the "explore" section.  Anyway to make this happen?

The second link you provided I had already seen, and (unless I'm looking at it wrong) only deals with adding/removing/reordering custom tiles & strips.  I'm wanting to remove (and technically only just move) some of the default tiles & strips.

1. Anyone know how to remove the "play all" tiles from the "Music" and "Pictures + Videos" strips?
2. Anyone know how to remove the "radio" tile from the "Music" strip?
 - OR -
3. Anyone know how to completey remove the "Music" and "Pictures + Videos" strips?
4. Using the second link ryan.tollefson provided I know how to create custom strips.  After figuring out step (3.) I would like to create a custom strip with "music library", "picture library", & "video library" tiles.  Anyone know how to link to those sections when creating a custom tile?

i'd like to be able to customise it all as well.

pictures
    picture library - play all
music
    search - music library - play all
video
    copy dvd - mymovies - video library
games
    emucenter
tasks
    program library

I assume noone else has any input on either how to do anything I'm requesting or whether it is possible?

You might get some more response if you try over at the mediacentersandbox, however I don't think what you're trying to do is at all possible.

The simple answer is 'No', to be honest.

There are some things you simply can't get rid of in Media Center - that's the way it looks, and we are pretty much stuck with it. It's not designed to be user-modified in that way.

There may be tricks that will be discovered in the future, but right now nobody seems to know of any.

Could I ask WHY you want to do all this to your Media Center? Is there any major advantage to your particular situation/design?

To be honest, I really just want to clean the start menu up & rid myself of things I don't use.

I got excited watching this forum, but then the creator disappeared before the app was released.

I agree, I'd love to be able to get rid of things.

I'd personally love to have only the TV&Movies, Sports, Music, and then the two custom strips for myTV and MyMovies.  Pictures & Video, Tasks, and Online Media just get in the way.  Also, I really think the tasks strip is stupid, because there's a lot of options in there that I don't want anyone else touching.

I HATE 'Sports' - I'm not a sport watcher, so it's a complete and total waste of time for me.

I must admit, I wouldn't mind being able to run the Media Center in 'Simple' mode, with the Tasks menu completely hidden other than having the option to turn the thing off and perhaps update the guide.

So jhoff, you don't use Pictures + Videos? It's the feature I use much more often than any of the others.

IgnoranceIsBliss:

I HATE 'Sports' - I'm not a sport watcher, so it's a complete and total waste of time for me.

In case you don't already know or didn't see, you can eliminate the Sports strip very easily.  See the third post of this thread.

And, other than going into each to see how they were setup, I have never used either the Pictures or Videos sections of media center.

Since switching over to myTV for all of my encoded TV shows , no I don't use the video gallery at all.  Pictures I've never used.

I deleted the MCESpotlight section, but apparently it reinstalls itself when the guide is updated because it was back this morning.

I've found a way to edit the standard start menu items in Vista Media Center, but its a hack.

Using this hack I've succesfully removed items and even entire strips from the start menu. I suspect that its also possible to change the position of menu items, but I haven't tried yet.

You'll need a resource editor like ResourceTuner from HeavenTools.com.

1. Make a backup of the %SYSTEMROOT%\ehome\ehres.dll
2. Change the security settings of the %SYSTEMROOT%\ehome\ehres.dll to give yourself ownership  of the dll. Afterwards change the file rights to full control. If you're running with UAC, then you might need to do some more steps here.
3. Open the ehres.dll in the ResourceTuner.
4. Expand the HTML node

Now the files we're interested in are among others:

STARTMENU.XML - defines the main start menu stripes
SM.ACTIVITIES.XML - defines the menu items under the Task menu
SM.MUSIC.XML - defines the menu items under the Music menu
SM.PICTURES.XML - defines the menu items under the Pictures & Video menu
SM.TV.XML - defines the menu under the Tv menu

5. Choose SM.MUSIC.XML for example, rightclick the node and select Edit Resource. The XML file opens.
6. Now remove the XML tags defining the menu items you do not want. Alternatively make the element into a comment by changing the tag to <!-- old tag content -->. It might take a while to get an overview of the structure and maybe some trial and error before the logic of the xml file sinks in. Do not remove the <home:App /> elements though.
7. When you're happy with the changes, click Ok and accept the changes.
8. Select Save As and select the original file (overwriting the existing).
9. Open Vista Media Center and check that the changes work.

Now, since this is a hack, I take no responsability of how you might break Vista Media Center, destroy your computer or otherwise corrupt the world using this hack.
Also note, that a software update might overwrite your hacked ehres.dll file effectively removing your changes.

Anyone else tried this yet?  Any possibility of creating a GUI to allow this to be done more easily?  I will be trying this tonight and report my findings.