09 April 2012

XBox Media Center Extender under Active Directory

We have an XBox in the office which we use to record and stream recordings from TV. The trouble is we also use Active Directory (AD) and Group Policies (GP) to configure users permissions etc. It seems XBox Media Extender requires Remote Desktop and some of our settings were conflicting with this requirement.

The Problem
When you attempt to add an XBox as a media extender you get:

Configuration Error
An error was encounter while configuring your computer for use with this extender.

Leaving aside the fact that this message gives us no indication of what the problem is (thanks Microsoft) I found this article on MS support:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932342 
Which deals with exactly this problem. However, after following that it still didn't connect.

Eventually I realised it needed Remote Desktop permissions and my User Group Policy was allowing RD connections to "Domain Users" and "Domain Admins" but it wasn't allowing it to plain old (local) "Users", and the XBox is added as a plain old User, not an AD user.

The crucial point was to change the policy using (GPEdit.msc) under: Computer Configuration, Policies, Windows Settings, Security Settings, Local Policies, User Rights:
    • Allow log on through Terminal Services: add the XBox user or group Users
    • Allow log on locally: add the XBox user or group Users (You also have to add (local) administrators).

1 comment:

  1. I'd just like to say thank you! Was banging my head against the wall on this one and your recommendation fixed it. Thanks a ton!

    ReplyDelete