Windows Media Centre often hangs on my HP Media Center m7299a. When I am browsing My Videos I can usually start and play a video without problem, but when it finishes and I start browsing again Media Centre hangs. I can still move the mouse cursor around the screen, but none of the mouse buttons, keyboard, or remote control buttons work. Also, the “wavy” background in Media Centre (rather like silk curtains) is still visibly moving, but only at the rate of one change in position every 10-20 seconds. I have tried installing the latest drivers for various devices on the computer but without resolve. My ‘My Documents’ folder is stored on an external hard drive and I have about 100 GB of movies, pictures, and music on that drive. (more…)

On my old computer (running Windows 98 SE) I was able to play .RMI music files by double-clicking on the file. However, on my new computer running Windows XP SP2 with Windows Media Player 10 an error message appears saying “Unable to find or execute SynthCore11.EXE program!”. How can I play the .RMI files on my new computer? (more…)

I appear to have lost the photo download wizard from my computer. In the past I have been able to download digital photos from my Olympus XD media card by inserting the card into the computer card reader. A green light started flashing on the card reader, and a download wizard appeared on screen allowing me to choose what to do with the card. Now, whenever the media card is inserted into the reader nothing happens and the only way I can download the photos is to open the H drive in My Computer and manually copy the files. How can I restore operation of the photo download wizard? The computer is running Windows XP SP2. (more…)

Like many ‘baby boomers’ I have boxes of 35mm slides and several hundred LPs in good condition. I would like to convert these into a digital format, which is more readily accessible on the computer. What options do I have for such a conversion? (more…)

When playing a movie in Internet Explorer the movie always opens in Windows Media Player. However, I would like to use another program to play these types of movies. How can I change the default player? (more…)