Standard MCE remote control - DVD button to launch My Movies!

I’ve wanted to be able to do this for along time but never figured it out and then I switched to using Logitech Harmony universal remote controls. But I had a requirement this week to be able to press the DVD button on a standard MCE remote control and for My Movies to be launched and not the native 7MC Movie Library.

There are probably many ways you can do this using programs such as Girder, Intelliremote, Eventghost, LM Remote KeyMap, ControlRemote to name a few.

However I wanted to just edit the registry to change the functionality of the remote controls DVD button and to use AutoHotKey which I am already using on the HTPC.

So if you want to do this, its a two stage process, first you need to edit the registry and change the DVD button to use a different keyboard command. By default Ctrl+Shift+M launches the native Movie Library. I wanted to change this so that Ctrl+Alt+M would be used. Secondly you need a small AutoHotkey script that detects Ctrl+Alt+M and launches the My Movies entry point in Media Center.

Editing the registry:

Open regedit and navigate to this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\HidIr\Remotes\745a17a0-74d3-11d0-b6fe-00a0c90f57da

Right click 745a17a0-74d3-11d0-b6fe-00a0c90f57da and select Export from the menu.

Save it as HIDIR.reg

Right click 745a17a0-74d3-11d0-b6fe-00a0c90f57da again and export again and save a second copy as HIDIR-Modified.reg

Now find where you saved HIDIR-Modified.reg right click it and select edit. It will then open in notepad.

Scroll down to the end of the file and add:

,24,00,00,00,04,05,\
10

The Report Mapping Table should look like the below, I’ve marked in bold the code we added.

"ReportMappingTable"=hex:01,00,00,00,04,00,1e,02,00,00,00,04,00,1f,03,00,00,00,\
04,00,20,04,00,00,00,04,00,21,05,00,00,00,04,00,22,06,00,00,00,04,00,23,07,\
00,00,00,04,00,24,08,00,00,00,04,00,25,09,00,00,00,04,00,26,00,00,00,00,04,\
00,27,0b,00,00,00,04,00,28,0a,00,00,00,04,00,29,1d,00,00,00,04,02,25,1c,00,\
00,00,04,02,20,1f,00,00,00,04,00,51,1e,00,00,00,04,00,52,21,00,00,00,04,00,\
4f,20,00,00,00,04,00,50,22,00,00,00,04,00,28,4e,00,00,00,01,08,02,0f,00,00,\
00,01,09,02,23,00,00,00,01,24,02,3b,00,00,00,01,04,02,16,00,00,00,01,b0,00,\
18,00,00,00,01,b1,00,17,00,00,00,01,b2,00,14,00,00,00,01,b3,00,15,00,00,00,\
01,b4,00,1a,00,00,00,01,b5,00,1b,00,00,00,01,b6,00,19,00,00,00,01,b7,00,6e,\
00,00,00,01,cd,00,10,00,00,00,01,e9,00,11,00,00,00,01,ea,00,0e,00,00,00,01,\
e2,00,26,00,00,00,01,8d,00,12,00,00,00,01,9c,00,13,00,00,00,01,9d,00,0c,00,\
00,00,03,82,00,29,00,00,00,03,83,00,2a,00,00,00,03,82,00,24,00,00,00,04,05,\
10

Save the HIDIR-Modified.reg file and then double click it to load it back in to the registry.

Or you can download my already edited HIDIR-Modified.reg file from my Sky Drive here.

Add the AutoHotKey script:

If your not already using AutoHotKey you will need to download and install from here. When you install it, it asks you if you want to create a sample script file in your Documents folder say yes.

You should have a green icon with a H on it in your system tray, if not find AutoHotKey from the start menu and click on it, then in the system tray right click the AutoHotKey icon and select Edit script.

Paste the below code in to the end of the file:

^!m::
IfWinExist Untitled - My Movies
WinActivate
else
Run %windir%\ehome\ehshell.exe /entrypoint:{8984aed5-7c9d-42f0-b2ad-c39bbcf04a25}\{810d7b87-1300-4aed-a700-1c6179f8f14b}
return

Save the AutoHotKey.ahk file and ensure you add AutoHotKey in to the Windows Startup folder so AutoHotkey runs at startup. Then reboot the PC.

Now when you press the DVD button on your standard MCE remote control the My Movies – Movie Library should be opened and not the native 7MC Movie Library !

If you need to restore your registry back to how it was before you started just double click on HIDIR.reg that you created in the first step.

More details can be found on The Green Button here