360 Extender for Vista requires XBL connection?
by Ken Weeks 
{ Oct 20th 2006 at 6:00PM }
Some Vista Media Center beta testers were confused when they were unable to connect to their Xbox 360 during the Xbox Live downtime last Tuesday. Luckily, reader Andy Wismar bothered to read the release notes:For the length of the beta program the Xbox 360 must have access to Xbox Live. This is typically accomplished by connecting your Xbox360 to your home network such that the Xbox360 has Internet access.
Presumably, Microsoft will drop this un-necessary restriction in the final Vista WMC release. As Andy points out, the reason you have a TV is so that you have something to do when your internet goes down.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tom @ Oct 20th 2006 7:37PM
For what it's worth, I got my Xbox 360 to run media off my computer running Vista Beta RC1. Anyone else messing with this stuff and, if so, having any problems?
KineticOnline @ Oct 20th 2006 8:06PM
I wish i could try it. Im from Ireland so when i try to connect it locks me out. 360 media center to vista seam to be region locked.
DA360 @ Oct 20th 2006 8:16PM
I am using Vista very actively and I use the Media Center all the time for my TV viewing (since I use a 19 inch widescreen LCD monitor for my 360's primary display) and I got frustrated when it wouldn't connect to the Vista Media Center because of that. It would just go back to the dash and say "This game requires a connection to the Internet" or something similar.
But its understandable, since the OS and Media Center (as well as the extender software) are still pre-release software. I guess it needs a Live connection so it can send any reports if it fails, has problems, or anything similar so the Xbox 360 Media Center Extender developers can fix them.
But all-in-all, the Media Center and Media Center Extender works extremely well on Vista, and even Transcode 360 is compatible to it, despite soon they will implement H.264 (MP4 AVC) and VC-1 support into the Vista Media Center extender software, and there's rumors they might support DivX as well (if so, that will eliminate most of the need for Transcode 360 for me).
HoodOrnament @ Oct 20th 2006 10:09PM
Maybe one of you guys can help me there, I have an installation of Vista running, but when i try to open Media Center, it only sits in the taskbar after the screen goes black for a second, and i cant get to it stay active. I wasnt going to replace my media center installation until this was fixed, do you guy have any idea on what could be wrong?
ZeroCorpse @ Oct 20th 2006 11:24PM
Meh. As long as Connect360 is updated for my Mac when the new version comes out, I'll be fine. I doubt I'll bother installing Vista in my Mac until it's required to play games.
Connect360 works great for hooking up my Mac and Xbox 360. I'm willing to bet the connection is even more flawless than the connection to Windows XP from the 360. That may not be what MS wanted, but it's pretty damned cool that iTunes and iPhoto work so well with my 360.
Keef @ Oct 21st 2006 6:01AM
Ok, i got my 360 to connect to my Vista RC2 media center, BUT it runs SOOOOO Slow and i have no idea why.....
i get to the menu and everything on the 360, but i press down to selece another bit of the menu, and it takes like 2 mins just to change....
anyone els had this problem and know how to fix it?
DA360 @ Oct 21st 2006 8:40AM
To Keef:
Well, it sounds like your using wireless (rather on your PC, your 360, or both), which I typically highly DON'T recommend using with both the XP and Vista Media Center, as its typically slow and commonly has network congestion while streaming video (in fact, if your using the Xbox 360 Wireless adapter, it warns you of this as you set up the Media Center extender).
To HoodOrnament:
Sounds very odd, haven't heard many run into that issue. It sounds like it might be related to the graphics card driver that's running in Vista. What kind of graphics card do you use? ATI and NVidia both provide graphics card drivers for Vista.
HoodOrnament @ Oct 21st 2006 2:10PM
I am running two nVidia Geforce 7600gs cards, in SLI and I have the driver installed. I dont really like it, as it doesnt give me the nVidia control panel any longer, and I get this half assed option in the windows control panel with very few options, it doesnt even allow me to choose if i want to switch between SLI and non SLI. A beta is a beta, but come on. I think it might have limited drivers though, as I am running the 64bit version of windows.
Maxx @ Oct 22nd 2006 11:09PM
Keef I have the exact same problem as you. I use wireless but I doubt that is the issue. Once I get the button over a movie it will stream 1080P with no hickups. So why wouldnt there be enough bandwidth to tell it to move a cursor one click. If you figure it out let me know.
Also if anyone else has any thoughts that would be great.