How to Integrate Hulu Desktop to Media Center

UPDATE 8/20/2009: This guide has been confirmed working on Windows 7 and will place the shortcut to Hulu in your Extras Library. Click the Comments post for user tips on getting the icon on your start menu.

If this article sounds familiar, it’s because I have previously written a similar article on integrating Boxee into Media Center . With the announcement of Hulu Desktop, a lot of people will be interested in merging their Media Center world with this new application.

This is by no means the only way to do this, but it gives you ultimate control. If you want a simple drag and drop experience, I would highly recommend MC Menu Mender which allows you to create custom entry points within Media Center.

As with last time, there are some detailed instructions you should follow, but this time there is a bit more tweaking necessary, so please pay attention. ALSO, I have 2 icons enclosed in the attached ZIP–one is a logo with transparent background, and the other (default) is the one shown above with the Black. If you prefer the clear one, simply delete the "icon.png" and rename the "iconwhite.png" to it.

Note, the following steps assume you installed into the default Hulu directory, which is C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Local\HuluDesktop. If you changed the directory, simply replace the directories in the ini and xml files.

1. Download the file attached below (login required)
2. Unzip the folder into your Hulu directory (which default is C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\HuluDesktop\)
3. The files should result in a HuluMCE folder (C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\HuluDesktop\HuluMCE).
4. IMPORTANT STEP: Browse to the above HuluMCE folder, and Right Click on the HuluMCEreg.xml file and select EDIT
   1. Replace the username "Mike" from the following line with YOUR USERNAME:  imageUrl="C:\Users\Mike\AppData\Local\HuluDesktop\HuluMCE\icon.png"
5. Still in the above folder, right click on the InstallHulu.cmd and select Run as Administrator
6. A dialog box will appear with the message Success 
7. Close
   all your windows, launch Media Center with your remote, and the
   shortcut for Hulu Desktop will appear under the TV+Movies row, as well
   as in the Program Library

*NOTE: If you prefer to have the shortcut appear in the TV+Movies row, you will need to edit the HuluMCEreg.xml file (Right click > Edit). On the line which says  <category category="Services\TV"/>, replace TV with Pictures. (eg., <category category="Services\Pictures"/> You can visit the following MSDN Webpage for a full list of category entrypoints you can launch from.

And that’s all! If you want to remove the icons, simply Run the "UninstallHulu.cmd" as Administrator and then re-launch MCE.

EDIT 5/28: Another option for you MCE users, Yaggs (creator of Secondrun.tv) has created an app to basically do all the above legwork. Check it out at his website