How to stream stuff from your PC with XP to AZbox HD

With Windows XP it's dead simple to make various folders visible, to your AZbox HD!

Start your Windows Explorer -> go to the main folders or even whole partitions you want shared -> right click on them -> Sharing and Security, then gave the rights -> Allow to be shared. I also went to -> Customise and -> Apply the template to all sub-folders -> Apply and -> OK.

Then - just in case - I went a bit "lower" and repeated the whole thing to the Music, Video and Photo folders, one by one, and – lo & behold - NTFS or not, firewall or not, who cares - all the movies and other media files are playable, in AZbox HD, using its Multimedia Player!!!

How do you do it? If you press the HOME button on your remote and go to -> Movies, for instance, you will be able to navigate to the folders you just enabled to be shared and watch a movie on your AZbox HD. Or listen to the Music in your music Menu or pictures in your Photos Menu...

We are still waiting for various limits to be removed - for all multimedia files, mind... Photos have the max resolution of 1920 x 1080 and so on... Apparently, a new Chief Programmer should focus Opensat engineers' attention to various bugs, in the bid to finally get the FW 1.0. Ahem...

Streaming from PC/Laptop with Vista -> to AZbox HD

Start -> Control Panel -> Programs and Features -> Turn Windows Features on or off -> here I added/installed anything even remotely connected with whatever I need to use for AZbox HD and Multimedia [Telnet Client, TFTP Client, Services for NFS and whatever else you find interesting...], since lay people like me cannot know exactly what's what in there, hehe...

Start -> Control Panel -> Network and Sharing Centre -> then, here allow:

Network Discovery
File Sharing
Media Sharing

So, those to ON!!!!
The rest to OFF.

At the bottom of that page click on
"Show me all the files and folders I am sharing".

Now, go to a partition or a folder or a file you wan to "share" -> right click -> Properties -> Sharing -> Advanced Sharing -> Share This Folder -> Permissions -> Everyone [only "Read" is enough, from all the options there] -> Apply -> OK.

Security -> Everyone.

Customise -> All items -> choose/tick "Also apply this template to all subfolders" -> Apply -> OK or Close, whatever's there...

AZbox HD remote: HOME -> Movies -> .. -> Network -> find your Home Network, then your PC, then the partition/folder where your films are stored and choose...

The same for Music -> find your music or Photos -> find them [not all will work, mind, as there are some limitations still... waiting for the good programmers to sort it all out... and to stop stretching our photos, too...].

OKI, how to stream your pics, music and vids from your PC under Windows 7 to your AZbox HD...
[quite similar to Vista, really]

I first went to Win7 components and activated everything network related there: Start -> Control Panel -> Programs and Features -> Turn Windows Features On or Off -> tick the Media Features, Network stuff, Telnet Client, TFTP etc. -> OK.

Then, I managed to get W7 to work with it all - network-wise and sharing-wise...

Go to: Start -> Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Network and Sharing Center -> click on Choose homegroup and sharing options -> choose the folders to share. Tick the option to "stream your pictures, music and videos on my home network".

Click on Change Advanced Sharing Options:

You are here: Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network and Sharing Center\Advanced sharing settings
turn on network discovery
turn on file and printer sharing
stop the "Public Folder Sharing"

Go to Media Streaming Options, which is in: Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network and Sharing Center\Media streaming options -> and there...
Name your media library [your nick, for instance]
Show devices in the local network -> Allow all
Media programs etc. etc. -> Allowed

Go back [BACK button]:
leave the 128b encryption to on
turn off password protected sharing
allow Windows to manage homegroup connections.

Then, start your Windows Explorer and
find all the folders you want to share
right click on each folder and go to Properties
click on Share tab -> click on the little arrow downwards to get the drop down menu and choose Everyone, then click on Add.
Give "Everyone" the permission to READ ONLY and click on Share.
You have more controls/options under Advanced Sharing button in the little window, too. Go to it and check the permissions etc. When you're done, in the main Properties little window, finish by clicking on Apply and Close.

Reboot your PC or at least reboot your AZbox HD and try finding your PC and the folders to stream. Sometimes, one needn't reboot, mind!

Mind, sometimes it doesn't work with W7 64b, for whatever reason... I am still baffled as to why it stopped working for me, with newer FWs...

Voila..