Media Center guide download error code 14 caused by BladeRunner Pro

About a month ago, I received a blog comment from a customer who diagnosed and solved an issue where Media Center guide download was failing with error code 14. Since then, a few other customers have replied to that blog comment indicating that they solved the problem the same way. I wanted to post this item as a standalone blog post to aid searching and discoverability in case other folks run into this issue in the future as well.

Issue

Installing or uninstalling BladeRunner Pro can cause Media Center guide download to fail with error code 14.

Workaround

BladeRunner Pro changes some guide download registry values, which can cause download errors in certain cases. If you currently have BladeRunner Pro installed or recently uninstalled and are encountering guide download error code 14, the following steps may help resolve it:

  1. Rename the registry sub-hive located at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Media Center\Service\EPG
  2. Launch Media Center
  3. Go to Settings | TV | Guide and choose Setup Up Guide Listings
  4. Reconfigure guide settings - this will cause Media Center to recreate the registry sub-hive that was renamed in step 1 above