Problems Vista Media Center after SP2 install

I watched my DVD Train Ride Through the Rockies at home, and went to my hotel with Hi Speed WiFi and Updated SP2/ on my Windows VISTA and the DVD Capability went away; "Unrecognised Disk in Drive E:".
I Reversed the Update (from the Windows Update Platform you can "uninstall" any Updates, and I found it on the list and removed it and all is well in DVD Playland now, except I cannot/willnot Update my VISTA to SP2 anymore - - -

With thanks to CX23882-19 at http://thegreenbutton.com/forums

Here's a workaround to get AVI/MKV playback working on Windows Media Center, whilst keeping SP2. I've identified the buggy component to be ehplayer.dll.

Firstly, you need to take ownership of ehplayer.dll in C:\Windows\ehome:
1) Open an elevated command prompt (i.e. right-click on Command Prompt and choose Run As Administrator
2) Go to C:\Windows\ehome
3) Type:
takeown /f ehplayer.dll
cacls ehplayer.dll /G <username>:F
(so on my system it is cacls ehplayer.dll /G HTPC\cdldt:F)

Now you have access to ehplayer you can replace it. The version you need (18000) can be downloaded from here:
http://www.quantexzone.com/files/ehplayer_18000.zip
I have no intention of infecting anyone's PC with malicious software, but if you don't trust me you can get this from your side-by-side directory. Go into C:\Windows\winsxs and search for ehplayer. You should see several versions of ehplayer.dll listed. One of them should be build 18000 (you can tell from the directory name).


Back in C:\Windows\ehome, rename ehplayer.dll to ehplayer.old and then copy the 'new' version (i.e. build 18000) into C:\Windows\ehome.


That should be all you need to do. Of course, you've now got mismatched versions of Media Center components, so it's possible that there could be stability issues with this, but so far it's been fine for me. Good luck!

It appears that ehplayer.dll has been broken since build 6.0.6002.18005. The latest build I've identified as working is 6.0.6001.18000, but it would be interesting to hear if anybody has a newer build than that which is working.