Why is nothing simple?

[joeyramone]

Please excuse this post if it is in the wrong place but i arrive here with the numbest butt and biggest headache i've ever had whilst working on this pc. My daughter is going overseas soon and i thought it would be a great idea if somehow she could get to see some of her favorite tv programs using her new laptop and my server/broadband tv combo at this end. I recently found an app called Remote Potato from (Fat Attitude) that claims, using the remote server software it provides, that it can access your Windows Media Centre to watch or record shows whist either on your own home network with one address or indeed anywhere else, whilst away from the home, with a different address. Not getting it to work straight away ( I'm sure i followed the install set up correctly and got my son to over see the process also) there is even some videos on their site which showed you just how easy it is, ha ha i thought it must be to do with my ports not being configured correctly. Now not being totally confident in that, or any, field i'd remembered seeing PF Config which for a price $30 (a lot for someone not working due to long term ill health) that would handle all port forwarding requests. What a nightmare this has been. Firstly it would not install, simply returning an error 1001. Then after contacting them they said it must be something on my system that was stopping it, but not what, and to install it using safe mode with networking. It did indeed go in using that method but eventually you have to use your pc in normal mode and as soon as i try to start it i get the 1001 error code message and it just goes off. The chap i am corresponding with said it might be something to do with a debugging program of some sort, possibly Visual Studio related interfering with things, but he really couldn't be sure. What is this? And does anyone know what i need to do? I'm at my wits end and my wife is fed up with me pulling out what little hair i still possess. I'm now getting a box that pops up: Windows Service Start Failure. Cannot start services from the command line or a debugger. A Windows service must be first installed (using installutil.exe) and then started with the server administrative tool or the NETSTART command. Can one of you fine folks help? I don't want my head to burst or my derrière to spread any more than it has already.

Please forgive me again if this is not in the right section.

[satrow]

I think you might be going the wrong way about this, Expat Shield would be the first thing I'd look to. The upload speed from your home network is likely to be more limiting than using a proxy server, if all that's needed is to watch UK TV programmes.

[BruceR]

I'd second Expat Shield, which I use occasionally and it usually works fine. It's easy to switch on and off as required (as an anonymous proxy doesn't help other stuff work right).

Bruce

[joeyramone]

thanks guys, i'll look into that. but the error message (see below) is my major concern. i cannot use PortForwad or uTorrent or WinTv7 (Hauppauge) the latter two i could use before this message appeared. I also have yellow exclamation marks next to my 6TO4 Adapter and others which i think might be linked somehow too. I also cannot update windows, I get the error code 80004002. The only thing I did was to download and install PortForward. If this is connected to the message below how do i fix this? As always, very grateful for any help offered.

Thanks

Mikey B

Windows Service Start Failure. Cannot start services from the command line or a debugger. A Windows service must be first installed (using installutil.exe) and then started with the server administrative tool or the NETSTART command