I get a lot of people asking for help on how to install and configure SmartGuide for MCE 2005. SmartGuide, together with WebGuide2 enables you to use the MCE 2005 Electronic Programme Guide in unsupported countries, where there is no native EPG support.The guide you see below is assembled from a host of sources on the internet. Most of what you see below comes straight out of the installation guide that comes with SmartGuide. I have just simplified it slightly and added some more explanations. First things first. Obviously you will need a fully operational MCE PC. For SmartGuide to work you will need a working WebGuide2 which uses XMLTV files to populate the database. I came up with a way to use your own XMLTV files with WebGuide2 which can be found at the Getting WebGuide2 to work with your own XMLTV files article post on this site.If you are performing this on a freshly installed MCE machine then please start MCE and run through the setup wizard. Make sure you get a TV signal. This will initialize the Media Center application and prepare it for what we are about to do.All your settings will be deleted when you follow the installation instructions below, so don't spend too much time customizing the setup.

1. Download the SmartGuide for MCE 2005 zip file here in the downloads section of this site and extract the zip file somewhere.  The download contains SmartGuide 2005 and a number of other files and utilities that are required to get all of this working.
2. Download the latest copy of your ZAXMLTV file from the file gallery or wherever your preferred XMLTV is.
3. From the download, copy the contents of the SmartGuide directory into the C:\WINDOWS\eHome directory.
4. Copy the XMLTV directory from the download onto the root of your C:\
5. Copy your XMLTV.xml file into the C:\XMLTV folder.
6. Run the C:\WINDOWS\eHome\MCE2005_EPG_Enable.reg to merge its contents in the registry. This fools Media Center into thinking the you accepted the terms of service for the guide and enables it to be used.
7. Run C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322\CasPol.exe -s off in a command prompt window.
8. Kill all eh* processes using Task Manager.  Another way of doing this is running taskkill /im eh* /f in a command window.
9. Delete everything under C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\eHome\ (including all the subfolders). Warning: This will delete anything configured in MCE including Scheduled Recordings, Channels Setup etc.  This is a hidden folder.
10. Open using regedit.exe and navigate your way to the  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Tuning Spaces\# where # is number of the TV setup you use. "1″ is for local analogue cable, "2″ is for local analogue antenna.  Change the value of the MinChannel key to 1. This will make channel 1 available as preset channel.
11. Open regedit and delete all the registry keys under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\TV System Services\TVAutoTune. This will clear all existing channels and only use the one which will be configured after using QuickGuide. We will not use the data found in the MCE 2005 service scan.
12. Open the C:\WINDOWS\eHome\SmartGuide.exe.config file using notepad.
13. On line 5, make sure the WebGuide2DSN value points to your WebGuide2 Access database. The default should be OK for most systems.
14. On line 16 set the TuningSpaceCountryCode value to you own country code. This usually the same as your international phone number prefix. For example, mine is set to 27 for South Africa.
15. On line 19, set the TuningSpaceSignal value if you need to. Use the value 1 for cable\satellite or 0 for analogue antenna depending on how you have setup your TV signal in MCE.
16. Go through the rest of the C:\WINDOWS\eHome\SmartGuide.exe.config file and set any other settings that you need to set.  The default values should work fine in most cases.
17. Save and close the config file.
18. Start C:\WINDOWS\eHome\SmartGuide.exe /i. Note the /i switch. This runs SmartGuide with a GUI interface and not as a command line application, which is the default. Note: Always execute SmartGuide.exe when your command prompt is in the C:\WINDOWS\eHome directory as it does not work properly if you run it from another location.
19. First click the Channel Editor... button and click Load to load all the channels configuration from WebGuide2.
20. If you are using a set top box, such as a DSTV decoder, you can just click Save and close the Channel Editor. You can skip the next few steps and move onto step 23 of this guide.  If you are using analogue antenna as a TV source you need to fill in all the frequencies for each of your channels.  If you don't know what your frequencies are, read the article Finding analogue TV broadcast frequencies for MCE 2005 here on this site.  Remember, if your frequency is 125,25 Hz the value you must enter is 125250000. I use the exact same number for the number, virtual channel and preset columns. That is… I use the defaults that I configured when setting up WebGuide2.  Make sure that you that you fill out all columns.
21. Click Save. This will create a C:\WINDOWS\eHome\output\frequencies.reg file and also add an extra table called channel_extra to the database used by WebGuide2. This table contains your frequencies, so you might want to back this file up when ever re-installing WebGuide2. Close the Channel Editor.
22. Open C:\WINDOWS\eHome\output\frequencies.reg with notepad and verify that the information in the registry file looks correct. Mine looks as follows:
    
REGEDIT4
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\TV System Services\TVAutoTune\TS27-0]
"1"=dword:0aec2c50
"2"=dword:0c5a6250
"3"=dword:2fa39650
"4"=dword:21557a50
"5"=dword:2dbb4e50

Note the "TS27-0″ key name. 27 for South Africa and 0 for analogue antenna.


23. Click 1. WebGuide2MCE! This should produce a message saying there is an encrypted EPG file at C:\WINDOWS\Ehome\output\...  Click OK to close this message.
24. Click 2. LoadGuide from XML. This should produce a "Congratulations. It worked…" message. Click OK to close this message.  If for some reason you get an error message with 2. LoadGuide from XML, try clicking 2b. Alternative LoadGuide from XML.
25. Close SmartGuide.
26. If you use analogue antenna as a TV source you need to double click the C:\WINDOWS\eHome\output\frequencies.reg to import you own channel frequencies into the registry. It appears some people do not have to do this but I have to do this every time I use SmartGuide to update my EPG.
27. Start MCE and confirm that you can watch TV and have Guide data and all the right channels are in the right order. (the same order as in WebGuide2).

From now on it is only necessary to start SmartGuide and click 1. WebGuide2MCE! and then 2. LoadGuide from XML, or you could setup a batch job by adding the following line to a batch file for importing new guide updates.C:\WINDOWS\eHome\SmartGuide.exe /fThe /f switch imports the frequencies.reg file after every update. Included in the download is a file called C:\XMLTV\Update EPG using SmartGuide.bat that has everything setup for you.  From now on it is only necessary to run C:\XMLTV\Update EPG using SmartGuide.bat after you have copied a new XMLTV file to C:\XMLTV to update the guide.C:\XMLTV\Update EPG using SmartGuide.bat simply does the following:

1. Kills all the MCE processes.
2. Makes a backup of your XMLTV file.
3. Alters the file using alter.exe (depending on your configuration.)
4. Turns .Net security off.
5. Copies your XMLTV.xml files to the correct location for WebGuide2
6. Refreshes WebGuide2 with the new XMLTV data
7. Runs SmartGuide to update the EPG
8. Imports the frequencies.reg file (depending on your configuration.)
9. Turns .Net security on again.
10. Starts MCE or reboots the machine (depending on your configuration.)

I have done this many, many times and have never really struggled to get it to work.  If something does go wrong and the guide has no data, reboot your machine and repeat each step above to check what the problem could be.If for some reason you have no luck with SmartGuide, you could always try using QuickGuide to get data into the MCE EPG.

Good luck!