Troubles with WMP-less Windows XP

[shawn_230]

I recently decided I hated Vista so I moved back to XP. I used nLite to create a smaller XP installation without all the bloatware.

I tried installing GB-PVR but any windows I tried to open would result in a .net 2.0 error message. I found out that this is because I don't have Windows Media Player installed in my stripped down version of XP.

Now I obviously really don't want to have WMP since I went through so much hassle to delete it. My question is, what specific files from WMP does GB-PVR require to work? Is there anyway can save these required files and uninstall WMP?

[HtV]

Maybe (I don't know) it's sufficient to change some lines in config.xml:
the one(s) which say something like: "use windowsmediaplayer for playback true" set these to false. Maybe gbpvr needs more than just that. I would just put wmp back on.
Use notepad for editing config.xml, don't use Word or similar for it. Don't forget to backup 1st.

Hans

[Koenie]

I there anything against having WMP installed and simply not using it (apart from the few MB of storage space occupied)? I also prefer other players and just assign the extensions to these players.

If you really stripped down XP I would not be so sure it is just WMP. .net uses several services in the background and it is quite hard to track down everything. This will be a trial and error process to find out everything.

[psycik]

I don't think it's possible to go wmp-less. I think it's used internally by gbpvr for a lot of stuff. Sub may confirm, or deny overnight.

[shawn_230]

Hi guys, thanks so much for the replies so far.

There's no real problem with having WMP installed, but I recently found out about nLite and there's just something very cool about having a stripped, quick copy of XP. Given my hardware is somewhat old (4 years), it helps to strip as much as you can I guess.

Anyway, I spent a few hours trying to figure out what was making GB-PVR crash. I finally gave up and downloaded BeyondTV trial to see if that would work. BeyondTV started up perfectly fine, because it installed a bunch of missing stuff on my copy of XP, including WMP.

Seeing that, I reinstalled the stripped copy of XP except with WMP included this time and GB-PVR works fine. So I concluded that something related to Windows Media Player that was missing was what was making GB crash on me.

I will give the config.xml file a try and see what happens, and worse comes to worse I can just keep WMP installed I guess. But in the meantime it would help if you guys could confirm what I have found out for myself and if there is per chance a workaround.

Cheers.

[HtV]

But in the meantime it would help if you guys could confirm what I have found out for myself and if there is per chance a workaround.

It seems to me that you are one of the guys now yourself, so please let us know your findings and confirm them to us.

Hans

[sub]

You pretty much have to have WMP installed. It relies on a few features it provides.

[shawn_230]

Hey guys,

I tried a few more things to no avail, so it seems WMP most definitely needed for GB-PVR to function correctly. I guess what I'll do is keep WMP but disable file type associations and autoplay to minimize how much it bugs me!

Cheers

[liteswap]

Just came across this thread: maybe someone who's gone through the pain could post a vLite profile (which from looking at the vlite site I believe you can generate and export) that' suitable for GBPVR?