Use Your Zune Remote to Control Windows Media Center

Did you know you can Zune wireless remote to control your Windows Media Center PC? Although not designed for this purpose, a simple registry hack is all the stands in the way of turning your Zune remote into one that controls Media Center, too.

Recently posted to LifeHacker, this tip is worth sharing:

1. Open the registry. Scroll down toComputer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\HidIr\Remotes\745a17a0-74d3-11d0-b6fe-00a0c90f57da
2. Find the REG_DWORD named CodeSetNum0 and change the value to Zero.
3. Reboot the PC and enjoy.

By default, Windows listens to channel 1 and the Zune remote is channel 8. This hack works by setting the ID to 0 which allows Windows to listen to all the IR ID’s. It’s been tested in Windows 7 and not in other versions, but there’s no reason to believe that it wouldn’t work in those, too. Let us know if you try it!