Disabling AverMedia’s Media Center Hotkeys

A year ago, I purchased an AverMedia C027 PCIe HD  capture card, so I could stream old retro games from my PS2, SNES, and N64.  While it works a lot better than the Hauppauge PVR, it still has a few issues.  I am reminded of these issues whenever I try to take a screencap with Fraps while playing a game: F10 brings up the AverMedia Media Center, which is a full-screen app that I have to use to configure the card’s input.  It shifts away focus from my game, and is generally enormously annoying.

Unfortunately, there’s no known way to disable this functionality:  The only available control panel applications only configure which inputs the card uses, and uninstalling the entire application also removes the ability to configure the card.  So, for those of you out there who are also trying to disable your card’s hotkeys, here’s a quick guide.

How it Works

Windows requires a program to be open in order to receive hotkeys. For instance, Fraps is always in the taskbar, ready to receive the hotkeys you selected to toggle recording and to capture screenshots.    So, the first thing to do is figure out which application is receiving those events.   Fortunately for you, I’ve already discovered the process receiving events: AverHIDReceiver.exe.  In the screenshot below (from Process Explorer, a free tool from Microsoft), you can see that AverHIDReceiver has launched Aver MediaCenter.exe.  You can also see that AverHIDReceiver.exe is launched by a system service called AverRemote.exe.  An additional clue is that the acronym HID means Human Interface Device, and is generally in reference to mice and keyboards.  Since we’re dealing with a hotkey, it can be assumed that AverHIDReceiver.exe is a good suspect.

The process family of AverRemote.
The process family of AverRemote.

Slaying the Dragon

Now that we’ve determined what the problem is, we can attack it.  I’ve googled everywhere, and there’s no way to disable either AverRemote or AverHIDReceiver’s hotkeys, so we’ve got to do this manually.

To do this, you need administrator privileges.  Note that this will also disable any infrared remotes that work with your AverMedia device.

  1. Open up your start menu and search for “services.msc” and hit enter when it comes up.
  2. In the list that appears, locate AverRemote.
  3. Open the service by double-clicking on it.
  4. Change Startup Type to Disabled.  This is so the service won’t start when you reboot.
  5. Press the Stop button.
  6. Check to see if AverHIDReceiver is still running.
  7. Hit OK and close the Services window.

You are now free from annoying hotkeys.