Vista - Media Center Extenders

Can you use Vista Ultimate running on a laptop as a media center extender?
And if you can how do I set it up?

Thanks in advance

Sean Johnson

I am afarid not.

It is a mmuch asked for feature but MS have not delivered on that one...


"Sean Johnson" <nospam@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:3C05058E-EC93-4D79-9BE9-C9A14BF2497F@microsoft.com...
> Can you use Vista Ultimate running on a laptop as a media center extender?
> And if you can how do I set it up?
>
> Thanks in advance
>
> Sean Johnson

If the purpose is specifically to use your laptop to watch recorded TV
recorded on your desktop, you can share the Recorded TV folder located in the
public folder on your Desktop. For some reason is not shared by default.
Then on your laptop you can add the shared folder as a watch folder. By doing
this you can access the recording in the Video section of Media Center.
Probably not much of difference but you could also map the shared folder to a
driver letter. Via a mapped drive I was able to test this and the Video
played fine. The Video started up instantly and played smoothly.

If the laptop has a TV tuner as well and has been configured, in the
recorder set up you can specify "More TV locations." It will not allow you to
watch a folder over the network, but if you map the shared folder to a driver
letter it could be selected as a watch folder. I would think the recorded TV
would be viewable in the Recorded TV area of media center rather than the
Video area. I don't have a tuner on my Laptop so I am unable to test this.

So anyways, the Laptop media center would not be an extender and would not
have full control. But at least you could watch\access the main PC video,
and perhaps if going on a trip copy the files over to the laptop.

"Buellpilot" wrote:

> I am afarid not.
>
> It is a mmuch asked for feature but MS have not delivered on that one...
>
>
> "Sean Johnson" <nospam@nospam.com> wrote in message
> news:3C05058E-EC93-4D79-9BE9-C9A14BF2497F@microsoft.com...
> > Can you use Vista Ultimate running on a laptop as a media center extender?
> > And if you can how do I set it up?
> >
> > Thanks in advance
> >
> > Sean Johnson
>
>
>