I'm trying to connect my Xbox 360 and computer using Windows Media Connect. I want to listen to my music collection on my PC through the Xbox 360. My computer says Windows Media Connect started properly, but I found an error that says Service WMConnectCDS failed to start correctly, due to InitializeNetworkMonitoring returning error 0x80029c4a. How do I fix this?
Microsoft offers two convenient ways to connect your Xbox 360 and your PC. The best way to connect is to have a Media Center Edition PC, because you get all the functionality of Media Center through your television and Xbox 360. Windows Media Connect is the second method, which simply requires a PC with XP and Windows Media Player 10. While the Media Center connection appears to work almost flawlessly, the Windows Media Connect option appears to have a random connection glitch caused by some a fouled up permission in Windows.
The error you are seeing is caused by a required file, stdole2.tlb, not having appropriate permissions. To repair the problem, you need to be logged in as a user with administrative rights. The repair is done from the command line. Open a Run dialog box from Start > Run. In the Run dialog type in CACLS C:\WINDOWS\system32\stdole2.tlb /E /G NetworkService:F.
CACLS is the tool used by Windows to edit the Access Control Layer, which is what tells the Windows which users have access to which resources in Windows. The /E designation indicates you want to edit the Access Control Layer. /G grants rights to a specific user, in this case NetworkService, which is a system level user. In assigning rights, you have the choice of granting one of the following:
R Read
W Write
C Change (read/write)
F Full control
In this particular instance, NetworkService needs Full Control to make Windows Media Connect work properly.
For more info on Windows Media Connect troubleshooting, make sure you visit the Windows Media Connect Player forums.
