XBMC4Xbox

hi all. let me start off by saying that i'm no bonehead but i have very little knowledge about computers so while i have searched online like crazy for solutions to my problems, there have been many posts that i simply did not understand. for example, i have no idea what FTP is or how to do it. i know it stands for file transfer protocol but that's about it. so if i ask some stupid questions, i apologize in advance.

here's my situation. i have an original xbox that a friend modded for me to stream videos from my computer on my tv. i have no idea what he did to the xbox, i just traded him some old 8-bit NES games for it and he set it up to work with windows XP, which i was using on my PC up until a few weeks ago. the xbox is connected to the computer via a network line adapter that is plugged into a wireless router. this setup worked great when i used XP as the OS.

i recently installed windows 7 32-bit and have since had some problems getting the xbox to stream vids. i have followed numerous guides online, including this one

http://www.xbmc4xbox.org.uk/forum/viewt ... f=14&t=204

and it's almost working. here is where i'm at:

1) i need to turn off windows firewall in order for the xbox to access the PC's files, which i can live with unless someone has an easy solution.

2) despite turning passwords off, the xbox still asks for a username and password ("lock preferences", it says) when i attempt to open folders on the PC. i leave both fields blank and it lets me through but i have to do that every time i open folders so again, i can live with it but if someone has an easy solution that would be dandy.

3) the big problem: half the time, when i try to open most vid files (AVI, Xvid, DivX), i just get the message "NT_STATUS_NOT_A_DIRECTORY". the other half of the time, the xbox will play the first 15 seconds of the file and then stop and go back to the last menu screen.

i have looked on this site and seen the posts about xbmc4xbox 3.5 beta 4 and wonder if i need to update some software in the xbox itself so that it can interact with windows 7 properly but i honestly have no idea. if anyone can throw me some suggestions, i'd really appreciate it. i'm happy to learn.

A long time ago, after an update to win7 from xp. I remember I had to actually take back ownership of the folders and files I wanted to stream via smb. So check your properties and see who the owner of the files is.

you need the folder with your said media to be shared. on your PC, right click the folder in question and go to the shared tab. change the folder to be shared and then from your xbox in xbmc go to file explorer screen (options from main screen) press the white button on your Xbox controller and add network drive. select smb, when it asked for a name put your computers name and password. save that and at the bottom when your about to press ok give a name. you should have access to your computer and going through the file path where your shard folder is. then from the main screen of xbmc go to video and add a source using the white button again. browse for your shared folder and there you have it. you shouldn't have to disable your firewall as you already have gave permission when you set it to shared. I recommend just setting your shared to read only so you don't delete anything.

if this doesn't make sense then it could be that I'm exhausted and ready to sleep.