Turning off Windows Desktop Search in Explorer

Save the following in a *.reg file and apply.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows Desktop Search\DS]
"ShowStartSearchBand"=dword:00000000

How to convert VOB to WMV in Windows Vista x64?

One of our long time windows media fan, Mido asked us about this.

Can you teach me how to covert DVD to WMV in Vista64? The old conversion guide is not work now.

My initial impression is that Zarax's DVD to WMV guide in his homepage should work under Windows Vista x64 editions without any issues because, Windows Media Encoder 9 that is primarily in use in that guide is Windows Vista x64 compatible. There is Windows Media Encoder 9 Series x64 Edition from Microsoft that Mido should be aware of.

Complexities could occur in my DVD to WMV guide with AviSynth. I know for a fact that it works under Windows Vista 32-bit editions. As I don't have a 64-bit capable CPU I am not able to test this guide on Vista x64. Time to do some research...

del.icio.us Tags: vista,x64,dvdtowmv,wmv,convert

VOB to WMV: Output file of 45 seconds

Recently a Windows Media user contacted us on a problem he came across; from his own words:

Specifically I am trying (rather unsuccessfully) to go from VOB to WMV files with WME.  No matter what I do, I always get an output file of 45 seconds even though the VOB is 1GB and plays for about an hour in Windows Media Encoder.  I use InterVideo's DVDXPack to enable DVD playback in WMP.

Any ideas why I can't get more that 45 seconds?

This kind of behavior usually occurs when Windows Media Encoder has to operate under an incompatible directshow filter configuration. To modify the directshow filter configuration we linked him to How to overcome DirectShow filter problems.

wmwiki.com changes

Today we officially locked our forums due to the adult content in the recent spamming we've been subject to.
From now on this blog will be the main discussion board for the Windows Media Wiki and Microsoft User Network.

Welcome to WMWiki Blog

Hi and Happy New Year 2008! Following our motto at Microsoft User Network - Helping users to walk through the digital decade era with improved knowledge about future products, this is an attempt to help out any Windows Media enthusiast out there with our research and findings. Having said that, our interests will not be limited strictly to Windows Media.

The phpBB forums we created and maintained in the years 2005-07 were successful until spammers decided to take over. We could not afford banning people and did not have time to strengthen any more security. So there plans for the current phpBB forum is to make it read-only thus keeping the knowledgebase we gathered, intact and remove any existing spam posts.

There are plans to create a google group for wmwiki. By offloading all the spam encounters to external services we can then focus on real productive work. So happy reading and looking forward to a making a nice collection of useful blog posts in the coming future.