Here is the easiest way to share files on windows 7 in under 5 minutes

Community Archives WD TV Live Networking
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Windows 7 changed the way files are accessed on the network and that seems to be giving people a lot of grief.  What you need to consider is that this is a media player to windows 7 NOT another computer. If you try to connect it like it is a computer that is where the problems start.  So, the easy way:

Windows 7 has its own in-built streaming server. The benefit of the server is that it does not require passwords, network groups, firewall settings, or tricky security permissions.  So here we go:

  1. Open windows explorer

2. Click Network located in lower left panel

3. You should see the WDTVLIVE listed as a device on the right

  1. right click it and select media streaming options

  2. In the window that appears , change it so it reads Allowed

  3.  Click customize

  4. uncheck Use default options

  5. Check make all of the media in my library  available to this device

  6. click ok 

  7.  Now select any folder you want to use for playing back on the WDTV

  8. Right click it and pick Include in  Library, pick the correct library for the type of media, video, photo, music

  9.  You can do that for as many folders and files as you like.

Libraries in windows 7 are like a group of shortcuts to files and folders categorized how you want to organize it. It does not move the actual file. 

  1.  The files will show on the WDTV Live under MEDIA SEVERS not shares.

  2. Enjoy your files :slight_smile:

I forgot to add that another thing you can do after you have this set up is :

Open windows media player

play an mp3 file

On the right where the play/burn/sync tabs is at , select play

There should be a little icon below that and on the drop down WDTVLIVE, click it

Another window should open with the playlist and a control for the wdtvlive where you can play music, pause it, skip songs, etc without using the wdtv remote.

you can read all about the win7 streaming and remote control on MSDN.

http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/archive/2009/05/12/media-streaming-with-windows-7.aspx

If you want to use a 3rd party server, some things like FLAC seem to not be supported with the windows media server, tversity has a free version. 

http://tversity.com/

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i just right click on the folder i want to share, select SHARE WITH, SPECIFIC PEOPLE, EVERYBODY, then it’s there.

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I have a lot of FLAC files on my Win 7 PC and they don’t show up using this method. Does the Win 7 media server only list mp3 and WAV files? Is there a way to get FLAC files to show up in the library. At the moment I am browsing the Win 7 shares, but this is a bit long-winded.

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I lchecked around and it seems FLAC is not supported on the windows media server.

You could use a different server that does support them though like tversity.

In tversity under media library change it from default to file system and Flac will play fine.

You can turn off transcoding to so it doesn’t try to resample the files under the transcoding option set it to Never.

http://tversity.com/

Also adds support for things like hulu. 

In some ways it is better because it has more features than the built in media server but the Pro version people are supposed to pay for but I know many don’t because of the open policy tversity has.

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Thanks ptricks - TVersity seems to be what I’m looking for. I can stream FLAC files to my WDTV Live from my Win 7 PC. I just have to tidy up the TAGs on my files and then I will be able to find my files a lot more easily. I don’t think I will be going back to the Win 7 built in streamer.

Thanks again

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I just don’t get it. I cannot see any media streaming options when I right click on the WD Media device:

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