Given certain circumstances, Windows Media Center will get stuck at “Downloading TV Setup Data” and do nothing else. This generally occurs after some sort of hardware change, as it happened to me on a motherboard change and on a hard drive change. YMMV.

For the sake of clarity, this entire post refers to Windows 7, but it could apply to Vista as well, given that the paths are relatively the same.

Anyway, there are a few posts around the Web that tell you to run a command line for mcupdate.exe with some switches. That’s like getting a tire patch, it’ll work for now but won’t last. Here’s the new tire solution:

1) Go to the Control Panel, Programs and Features, and click “Turn Windows Features on/off”. Uninstall Windows Media Center.

2) Reboot.

3) Empty out the folder C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\eHome\

4) Go to the features and enable Windows Media Center again.

5) Run Windows Media Center and do the TV setup.

This solution is the only one that worked across reboots and allowed me to go and reset the TV signal without hassle. Please leave a comment if something else worked for you.

Tags: Downloading TV Setup Data, stuck, TV, TV setup, TV signal, windows 7, Windows Media Center