Microsoft redeemed themselves slightly by agreeing the support Windows Media Player until 2020. They turned off the program guide last summer and switched to a new provider, but most systems crashed, not switching to the new guide. I finally contacted the supplier of my computer's TV receiver and asked what software they recommend to replace WMP. They responded that there is a forum with the answer about how to get the new program guide to load (if there is no program guide it is simply a blank list of channels and hours and you have to set up recording manually, with no metadata downloading to identify it in the recording list). I opened up Windows Media Center, ran the startup again, and gave it a different but nearby zip code and it downloaded the new channel guide.

Now I have to decide if I want to keep this, or switch to the program that I'm running a 30-day free trial of right now. The new one is pretty good, has some better features, and gives me the choice of a proprietary file type for recordings (and WMP uses it's own) OR a standard mp4 sort that can be read by many different playback software programs. They take more space on the hard drive, and you aren't given the option of saving a program you've been watching from the beginning if you choose half way through. Using the proprietary software means they record it from the beginning and if you choose to record, they keep it. I think it can be converted to mp4 for a disk or other playback, and you can convert and record to DVD in WMP. It's a very slow process.

Decisions, decisions.