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Chapter 7, Build a Windows-Based Home Theater PC

built-in support for joysticks, so no further parameters

are required.

Now launch myHTPC and see how you’re doing. You

should see a button called “my Games” now; click it,

and you should see the two media modules you just

added. If you go into those, a screen resembling Figure

7-21 should appear. Launch some games by selecting the

thumbnails. Pretty cool, huh?

Emulators and ROMs abound on the Internet. To add

support for other emulators, the process is the same

as described above. Simply use .My Games to create a

metadata file, and configure the plug-in for each new

media module.

5. Configure a weather report

Finally, you’re going to configure a weather report. This is a simple task, but

requires an Internet connection.

1. Run Configure myHTPC from the Start menu and choose My Weather

from the tree.

2. Enter your ZIP code in the Location textbox and click Search.

3. Select your city from the list that appears below. That’s it! Click

“Launch myHTPC” to check it out.

Wrapping Up

That wasn’t too bad, was it? We’ve gotten a fair amount of functionality

with entirely free software, and we can control the whole thing from the

couch. Cool!

However, it’s important to remember that this is still a computer, and

it’s always connected to the Internet. Make sure you keep up with ...