How to get your Scheduled / Series Recordings from one pc to another

[simbot82]

This is thanks to Ian Dixon over at the Media Center show community and could be very handy to some here.

If your building or buying a new Media Center PC and want to transfer your scheduled TV and series recordings over to your new PC this is how I did it when I rebuilt my PC

1. Download and install mceBackup 2.0 from here (its my free tool)
2. Set the backup folder to a location that you will have access to on your new PC eg USB memory stick or server share
3. Do "Backup Now"
4. On your new install of Windows install mceBackup 2.0
5. If your on Windows Vista, go to services and stop Windows Media Center Scheduler Service (you shouldn't have to do this but it seems to work the best if you do)
6. Use mceBackup to restore the settings from the location you used in step 2
7. Start the Windows Media Center Scheduler Service (or reboot)
8. All your series records should now be present in Windows Media Center

[GlenR]

I just copy the recordings.xml file (C:\Documents And Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\eHome\Recording\Recordings.xml) to backup my scheduled recordings. Every time I have had to restore an image, copying thsi back in restores all my series recordings.

I assume that Vist still uses this file in a similar location...

[impact]

It does.

Ian just simplified it with a point and click solution in a gui - that does basically that. Oh his app does a couple of other things.... But a lot of people do not venture into the ehome directory nor look for hidden files or directories.... So I suppose Ians app does it for them.

Both solutions are basically the same though, and Vista / MCE2005 uses the same method.

[GlenR]

Excellent. I run a small batch file daily tp back up the recordings.xml file so even if I have a fatal drive crash and lose my system drive, I can restore from an image and then get back all my scheduled recordings.