Disable Dell Media Centre

I have a new Dell Studio 1737, with Vista Home Premium which I'm happy with ... apart from this Dell Media Direct thingy which is driving me berserk! Intermittently, and for no apparent reason, it jumps up a big black box (Dell MediaDirect), then another box (MediaDirect Home) which seems to be for running films etc.
OK I may use it sometime in the future, but hopefully when I request it ... not at present, thanks!
I can't find it in the Startup files, nor in Task Manager.
So how can I turn it off?
If you know the answer, please give me "baby steps". I'm a beginner to intermediate computer user, but a newbie in Vista.

 

Uninstall it. If you ever need it again, reinstall it from the disk.

 

Thanks ... I should have said in my post, that I already spoke to Dell Support. They said I had to leave it on the computer, because there are two buttons which fire it up (one above the keyboard, and another somewhere on the outer case); if either button is pressed and the program isn't present, it could cause the computer to malfunction or freeze.

That's why I just want to disable it. (Dell Support couldn't or wouldn't tell me how.)

 

That's a load of crap. The external Dell Media Center button is just for booting into MediaDirect directly. If you ever format your hard drive, it will remove this feature. Not that I ever used it...

I've uninstalled MediaDirect on my Studio 15, and I've reinstalled Windows plenty of times without reinstalling MediaDirect. If I press the button when the computer is off, it just boots into Windows like normal, and if I press it in Windows, nothing happens at all.

It's safe. And in the extremely unlikely event that pressing the media button without MediaDirect installed does freeze your computer...just don't push it.

In all seriousness, though, MediaDirect is not a vital piece of software. And like I say, you can easily reinstall it with the disk.

 

I changed the button to load Windows Media Player when I press it.

 

How did you go about doing that? At one point I had MediaDirect installed, and altered the .exe to simply redirect to open Windows Media Center. But whenever I pressed the button, it would open two copies of WMC. And after I deleted the rest of the MediaDirect files (but left my modded .exe in place) the shortcut never worked again.

 

I followed this guide, ironically from yours truly.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=286441

 

Hi Mastershroom
Thanks for your advice and reassurance! I have uninstalled MediaDirect, all seems OK.

 

Glad to hear that's worked out for ya.