I've been trying to successfully get DVRMS Toolbox setup for quite some time with the purpose of automating commercial skipping from my Recorded TV from Vista Media Center. Unfortunately after banging my head against the wall for hours and trying to modify the configuration repeatedly I still got the dread message: "Commercial add skip has stopped responding, you will now be returned to MCE." The problem seems much more common on Vista x64 MCE. There are numerous postings and rants in babgvant's forum about the issue. Please don't misconstrue my frustration for DVRMS toolbox, I just think think things need to be easy and simple. Lifextender does just this and does it very well. I will probably take another run at DVRMS Toolbox when release 1.2.0.9 is released publicly, but until then Lifextender will be my choice for enjoying commercial free content.
Lifextender is my current choice because I simply downloaded the executable install, ran it, and presto! Now I am able to enjoy commercial free television on my Windows Vista x64 Media Center.
The only real tweak I have to offer up here is that initially I would get a message that stated "Windows has blocked some startup programs" when the application started upon login. This is a documented feature of User Account Control (UAC) and is discussed here on the the Lifextender FAQ:
http://www.lifextender.com/troubleshooting.aspx#i_have_uac_enabled_and_lifextender_doesn
The Fix
Yes, I said there is a fix for the UAC issue with Lifextender. The fix doesn't however come from the MS support site at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/930367. I found that the better solution to the problem is to use the Vista Scheduler to launch Lifextender rather than launching from the Startup Folder. Here are the steps to follow:
- From the Start menu Type "Task Scheduler" in the Search Box. You can also access the scheduler by going to Start Menu → All Programs → Accessories → System Tools, but the previous is much faster and more fun.
- From the Actions pain to the right side click "Create Task". This will bring up a dialog box that looks like this:
- Enter a name for the task such as "Lifextender"
- Click Change User or Group to specify the account the application should run under
- Select the Run only where user is logged on Radio Button
- Check the Run with highest privileges box
- Go to the Triggers tab and click New. This will bring up the dialog box below:
- Choose At log on from the Begin the task drop down box
- Select the Any User radio button
- Be sure the Enabled box is selected in the Advanced Settings area and Click OK
- Go to the Actions tab and Click New. This will bring up the yet another dialog box:
- Select Start a program from the Actions dropdown list
- Click the Browse button and navigate to the Lifextender executable by default at "C:\Program Files (x86)\Yellow Cup\Lifextender\Lifextender.exe" and Click OK
- Navigate to Start Menu → All Programs → Startup. Right click Lifextender and delete it from the startup folder.
Woot! No more annoying dialog boxes in the tray after startup. Lifextender is now working and will startup properly at login!
Good luck and enjoy commercial free recorded television. Just in case you didn't catch my link above. It is available totally free from here: http://www.lifextender.com/. Great job Yellow Cup Project for putting out a wonderful new MCE add-in.