Windows Media Center refuses to start

I'm having some problems getting Windows Media Center to start on my machine. Whenever I click on it, it complains that "Windows Media Center has been closed because it does not support running in portrait mode. You must restore landscape mode in order to use Windows Media Center."

The funny thing is that on this machine, one of my two monitors is in landscape mode. WMC should just use that one... but it doesn't.

Two obvious solutions:
1) Ditch the second monitor, or disable it, or switch it to landscape mode when running WMC. These options are not that great.

2) The geek way is to tweak the registry;) By deleting the "monitor" value from "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Settings\MCE.PerUserSettings" I can force WMC to start on my primary (landscape) monitor. If you don't know how to use regedit, there are lots of tutorials available.

Programming an ExpressVu 3100 to talk to a Sony VCR

I'm trying to teach my ExpressVu 3100 Satellite Receiver to talk to my Sony VCR, so the receiver can tell the VCR to record shows for me.

The documentation and the online help tell you to first program your remote to work with your VCR, by trying a number of code numbers, and then to use that same code to program the receiver. For my Sony VCR, the list was 500, 501, 502, 503, 504, and 629. Not surprisingly, it was the last one that worked.

Didn't work for the receiver though. Ran the test a bunch of times, moving the VCR around, just in case something was blocking the IR signal. No dice.

Finally I give up, and contact a helpful Bell technician (Claude) through chat support. It turns out the receiver might use a different code than the remote. Exactly the opposite of what it says in the manual. In my case, 500 worked just fine in the receiver.

Thank god for smart technicians.