Here is a useful tool for Windows XP Media Center Edition. It's called Tweak MCE Powertoy and can be downloaded from Microsoft. Among a handful of great features there are a couple which make TweakMCE a must download software.

Quite arguably the greatest feature, is the skip forward or backward interval setup. Being able to dictate how far MCE will skip forward when using your MCE Remote is simply priceless.  Once installed, open your Media Center and go to "More Programs" and select TweakMCE. This will bring you to the Main Menu. To change the skip interval, head over to "TV", which will bring up the TV options, and select Skip Forward Interval. The setup will now ask you how far, in milliseconds (1 second = 1000 milliseconds), you want MCE to skip forward when pressing the skip button on your MCE Remote. If you want a one minute interval you simply input 60000, 120000 for a two minute interval and so on. We'd like to point out that the back interval is independent from the forward interval, hence we recommend to setup the back interval as well. A common and quite useful configuration, is to have the forward interval set to one minute and the back interval to 30 seconds. This really helps when you want to skip show intros or commercials, which are around one and five minutes respectively.

Another great feature in TweakMCE is the ability to change the storage folder add multiple "Watched Folders". It is not uncommon to have several "Recorded TV" folders in today's HTPC's. Whether you bought an extra hard drive for additional storage or you don't like the default folder provided by MCE. Keep in mind that the Recorded Tv media files cause heavy fragmentation, which might not be disirable on your system drive. Though MCE will at least let you choose what hard drive to store your recordings, TweakMCE will let you choose what folder. Hence, instead of the default x:/RecordedTV folder you can choose x:/MyName/Media/Tv etc... To change the storage folder simply select the "Storage Location" option and type in your desired path.
fig1

Finally, to include your Recorded TV form several hard drives or folders under "My TV" in MCE, select the "Watched Folders" option and add the additional folders paths as shown in fig1. It's worth noting that this function was included in the Vista version of Media Center.

If you have a server and want to add a network folder, write down the network pathway i.e. \\Example\example. Mapping the drive and adding x:\ as a path name does not work.