Switching audio streams and subtitles with the MS remote

For some reason it is not possible to switch audio streams or subtitles in Vista Media Center with your remote. You can use the keyboard combinations Ctrl+Shift+A for Audio and Ctrl+U (for sUbtitles?), but I don't want to drag out my keyboard when watching a movie. Not to mention it's difficult for the rest of the family to remember the correct key combination (Ctrl+A activates the radio by the way, so you need to remember to press that Shift key too...).

But there is light at the end of the tunnel. It's called Autohotkey (AHK for short) and it allows you to trigger actions based on keypresses. And you have a couple of unused buttons on your MS remote control anyway (the colored ones at the bottom). It is not for the faint of heart, but it is possible. And here's how to do it:

1. Download the latest version of Autohotkey and install it
2. Download Micha's Human Interface Device support for AHK here
3. Unpack Micha's rar file in a new directory of your choice
   
4. Run the vcredist_x86.exe to install necessary DLL:s (I forgot this first and couldn't grok the error messages I got)
5. Download my remote control script and save it in the same directory. Name it e.g. MyRemote.ahk (or whatever you want - it needs to end with .ahk though)
6. Create a shortcut to the MyRemote.ahk script in your Autostart folder (optional, but nice)

You should now be able to use the red button to switch audio tracks and the green button to switch subtitles!

But if you're out of luck you might run into problems. E.g. your remote might send different codes. In that case you need to find out the remote control codes your remote sends. Uncomment the line MsgBox Received code: %Vals% in the script to find out your specific codes and change the values in your script correspondingly.

Sources of information and credit to:

• Micha for the work on HID device support
• boulder2 at The Green Button for posting info in this thread(script does not work as is, though)
• yotz for improving readability of Micha's original remote control script
  
• TRHR for showing that you need to have {Enter} after ^+a
• Look here if you want to hide the taskbar icon for AHK
  
• And finally this thread on the Autohotkey forums on Micha's work
  

Getting a better keyboard for my HTPC for free

The keyboard and built in keypad that comes with the Fujitsu Siemens Scaleo EV 2535 is less than optimal. It misses characters and it's difficult to navigate the mouse pointer precisely. (You kinda think this would be a standard feature on a wireless keyboard.) After having read Johannes's recommendations (post in Swedish) I wanted to buy a better keyboard+mouse combination.

But why? I have several alternative input devices laying around already (iPod touch and two laptops). Why not remote control the computer with those instead?

Reading up on different solutions VNC seems the way to go. It's open and cross-platform and you can get clients for OS X, Windows, and even iPod touch. But the server doesn't seem to work on Vista. Then I found TouchPad Pro, which seems like an excellent application for the touch and their installation instructions did mention Vista.

So I installed it. And it did work.

All that remained was to get a good VNC client for the Macbook and here Jolly's Fast VNC fit the bill. Now I can remote control my HTPC from my laptop and I don't have to rely on the finicky keyboard that came with the HTPC. Instead I use the excellent MacBook keyboard and trackpad. I think I need to configure the keyboard layout since accented characters are not where you expect them.

To sum it up: don't believe everything you read on the web. You can use TightVNC in Vista.

Next step will probably be to get the TouchPad pro application once it hits the AppStore (I haven't bothered to jailbreak my 2.0 iPod Touch) and use the iPod as a remote.