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Play .MKV’s in Windows Media Center (WMC)

Play .MKV’s in Windows Media Center (WMC)

For a long time I had resisted converting my DVD and Blu-Ray disks into any other format because I didn’t want to lose any quality.  I had lived by this rule for a long time, and thankfully companies like QNAP and Thecus came to my storage rescue.  However, the day has come where the cost of storing all the extra garbage that comes along with these movies has opened my eyes to benefits conversions.  With that, I have began converting my movie collection to a format that allows me to lose all the excess fat, but keep my movie loss-less. Read More…

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Media Center in Windows Vista has the capabilities of displaying and playing DVD content stored on your personal computer, however this feature is not enabled by default.  Enabling this feature is pretty easy and can be done by simply modifying your registry.

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NOTE: Editing the Registry incorrectly can cause serious, system-wide problems that may require you to re-install Windows Vista to correct them. Microsoft nor computingondemand.com cannot guarantee that any problems resulting from the use of Registry editing can be solved. Back up your registry first, but use at your own risk.

  1. If Windows Media Center is running, close it.
  2. Click Start
  3. In the Start Search box, type regedit
  4. In the Programs list, click regedit. (If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type your password, or click Continue.)
  5. Locate and then click the following registry subkey: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Settings\DvdSettings
  6. In the details pane, right-click ShowGallery, and then click Modify.
  7. Delete the contents that appear in the Value data box.
  8. In the Value data box, type Gallery, and then click OK.
  9. Close Registry Editor.

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To have Vista Media Center display the cover for your ripped DVD simply download the cover from your favorite DVD cover source and save it in your ripped DVD content folder as folder.jpg.

Click here to download a registry export: showgallery.reg

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Joe DiFiglia has written 226 Articles at C.O.D.


In early 2000 I became increasingly frustrated with hardware review sites praising less than satisfactory products. The saying: “if you want something done right, do it yourself” applies here. I wasn’t satisfied, so I did it myself; and here we are years later.

2 Responses to How to Enable “DVD Library” in Media Center for Windows Vista

  1. chris says:
    May 23, 2009 at 2:10 pm

    hi all i have the reg hack done for awail now and its bliss but i have a question!! i have a 500 gig hdd and its nerly full i have another 250 gig next to it how do i make vista see this as another dvdfolder? so i can start to put dvds in that and not run out off space