MB3 used with MCE running as a shell replacement

[vletroye 6]

Hello,

 

I did upgrade today my good old MB2 to MB3 on Windows 8.

I am really impressed! I used to work in a IT company for years and can't still believe that communities do greater pieces of software that most companies...

(No, I don't expect to get more help because I tell that )

 

On my HTPC, I used to replace the windows shell by MCE, improving the user experience for kids (and wife).

Concretely, as far as MB3 is concerned, I did set the following value as “Custom User Interface” in the Group Polices of a user account (MediaCenter) with a blank password:  %windir%\ehome\ehshell.exe /mediamode /nostartupanimation /entrypoint:{CE32C570-4BEC-4aeb-AD1D-CF47B91DE0B2}\{FC9ABCCC-36CB-47ac-8BAB-03E8EF5F6F22}.

 

This is possible with MB3 only since it runs as a service too. And I was actually only waiting on that to upgrade...

I had however several issues and I would appreciate that someone validates my solutions:

 

After the setup,

• The Service was not configured to start automatically although (I am quite sure) I did select that option ?! I had to manually change the start mode via the Windows "Services" Management Console.
  
• MB3 was not authorized to access the NAS. I understand that it does not access the network with the credentials of MB's users but with the account used to run MB service instead.  I did set a Windows "standard" User Account as log-on account for MB service.
  
• Unfortunately the MB Service was not able to start anymore with such a Windows User Account. I had to change the profile of that user into a local Administrator. Possibly an issue related to UAC ?!
  

Could someone confirm that it's required to run the service with a local admin account (if not with the system account)?

And do you know if it is foreseen to impersonate the MB3's users to access the resources (like network, shared folders,...) soon or later?

 

Thx in adv. for sharing your knowledge!

 

V.