Question : Manual installation of Windows Media Center

I run Windows Vista Ultimate in my notebook and accidentally deleted Windows Media Center from it. I tried copying over the \Windows\ehome files from my desktop to replace the files I had deleted, but it does not seems to work. Does anyone know how to manually install Media Center, or what other files (other than the ones in \windows\ehome) does it need??

Answer : Manual installation of Windows Media Center

Windows Vista Media Center files and registry information are protected by Windows Resource Protection (WRP) in Windows Vista.  This means that only the OS installer service (named TrustedInstaller) has permission to modify/remove these files or registry keys unless you specifically take ownership of the files/keys and add additional user accounts to the access permission list (which you should not need to do except in extraordinary circumstances).

Repairing Windows Vista Media Center files
You can use the following steps to repair the files that are a part of Windows Vista Media Center:
1.      Click on the Start menu, choose All Programs, then Accessories, then right-click on the Command Prompt item and select Run as administrator
2.      Click Continue to authorize opening a command prompt with administrative privileges
3.      Run this command in the cmd prompt: sfc /scannow
4.      The cmd prompt should list text stating "Beginning system scan. This process will take some time."
5.      Wait for the scan to complete (this can take several minutes so be patient)
6.      When the scan completes, the SFC tool will indicate whether or not it found any integrity violations and offer you the chance to fix any that are found
7.      After fixing any violations that are found, try to use Windows Vista Media Center again
Repairing Windows Vista Media Center registry entries
Unfortunately, there is not an easy way of repairing the registry keys/values that are installed by Windows Vista like there is for files.  If you want to try to repair the registry keys/values that are a part of Windows Vista Media Center, you will need to run Windows Vista OS setup again and repair the OS.