Overview

Gives you an introduction to the MediaPortal 2 components / applications and their responsibilities.

Components

MediaPortal 2 Client

Executable: 

MP2-Client.exe

Default data directory: 

C:\ProgramData\Team MediaPortal\MP2-Client

The client is the main GUI for MediaPortal 2. You can run multiple clients in your network, they can share the media resources with all other clients. This requires the MediaPortal 2 server to be running and the clients to be attached to it.

MediaPortal 2 Server

Executable: 

MP2-Server.exe

Default data directory: 

C:\ProgramData\Team MediaPortal\MP2-Server

The server is the responsible for the central management of all media. You can connect multiple clients to the server and across all those clients you get the same data. Besides the media files itself, this also includes the meta data like genre, summary, actors, as well as the play count, watched state and last time a media has been played etc.

The MP2-Server.exe is a windows service, that means it is started automatically with windows. A windows service is already running even if no user is logged in to the system, yet. Windows is able to detect stops or crashes of the service and automatically restart it.

The server itself does not have a graphical user interface and it is running in the background completely, but it can be monitored by using the service monitor and configured using any attached client.

MediaPortal 2 ServiceMonitor

Executable:

MP2-ServiceMonitor.exe

Default data directory: 

C:\ProgramData\Team MediaPortal\MP2-ServiceMonitor

The service monitor is a small application running in the system tray to monitor the status of the MP2-Server.
It can be used from any PC in the network no matter if the server or any client is on the same or another machine in the network.
The tray icon changes depending on the connection state:

• MediaPortal 2-ServiceMonitor disconnected from MediaPortal 2-Server / MediaPortal 2-Server not running
  
• MediaPortal 2-ServiceMonitor connected to MediaPortal 2-Server
  
• MediaPortal 2-ServiceMonitor and at least one MediaPortal 2-Client connected to MediaPortal 2-Server
  

From within the context menu of the MediaPortal 2-ServiceMonitor, you can start and stop the service (MediaPortal 2-Server) if it is running on the same machine.

The MediaPortal 2-ServiceMonitor window displays a list of clients attached to the server and their current connection state.

MediaPortal 2 ClientLauncher

Executable: 

MP2-ClientLauncher.exe

Default data directory: 

C:\ProgramData\Team MediaPortal\MP2-ClientLauncher

The MediaPortal 2-ClientLauncher is a small tray application that allows starting the MediaPortal 2 Client application with the green button on your remote.

Related

• Getting Started