Making a windows PC more living room friendly

[SuperNintendo64]

So i bought a Mini PC and put it in my living room
The two master objectives are

- Watching movies with all the streaming apps centralized in one single device with 4k and 7.1 sound
- play PC games in my living room
- playing emulators

Why? Because ive already spend most of my day sitting like the hunchback of notre dame in front of a computer at work. If ill spend gaming time in front of a computer it better be on the living room couch, laid down, with enough space to change positions, a healthy distance between my eyes and the screen, etc

So far it feels fantastic, but it obviously aint perfect

The main problem is that windows is obviously not a system with a default interface made for the living room
Windows is made for you to be
- very close to the screen
- heavily dependent on your tight grip of the mouse cursor
and as you can imagine when you put your pc on the living room tv, far away from you, you lose both those things

Im working on a "solve one problem at the time" approach

The first problem id like to solve is:
"Is there any sort of different windows LAUNCHER/THEME that made the system less dependent of the mouse cursor??"
Because the whole windows scheme is about the mouse
Maximize
Minimize
Close
Choosing options
Everything is the mouse pointer

Is that any way to make it more focused on the arrow keys?
Because... when you really need it you see windows is not exactly arrow key frendly


Extra info:
- YES, i have several types of air mouses, wireless keyboards with touchpads and even a smaller keyboard coming up. Yet none feel confortable and my living room is getting more cluttered with controllers by the minute
- NO, i wont try linux

 

[AncientBoi]

Nice.

If I remember right, You could make a custom Pointer. I have in the past [even a naughty one lol]

 

[DinohScene]

I have a desktop Windows PC hooked up to me telly in the livingroom and I got a wirelesa KBM combo to control it.

Works perfectly fine for watching media and the likes.

 

[AncientBoi]

I also could connect to my TV via HDMI.

Hi @DinohScene

 

[SuperNintendo64]

Nice.

I have a desktop Windows PC hooked up to me telly in the livingroom and I got a wirelesa KBM combo to control it.

Works perfectly fine for watching media and the likes.

And do you have any kind of customization system wide?
Bigger icons, any sort of different theme?


Do you have any sort of CEC funcionallity? Meaning, when you power off the computer the tv also powers off?

Because that would be great for me and i still couldnt find where to set this?

 

[DinohScene]

And do you have any kind of customization system wide?
Bigger icons, any sort of different theme?


Do you have any sort of CEC funcionallity? Meaning, when you power off the computer the tv also powers off?

Because that would be great for me and i still couldnt find where to set this?

Nope, "stock" windows 10 pro I'd say.
Only bit of "customisation" would be rainmeter for hardware/hdd monitoring and Kodi for a all purpose HTPC experience I guess.

Idk I'm not to bothered with the whole customisation thing, I've got 17 TB in that machine, all I need is quick enough access to the files and having them play without issues haha.

KISS is what I live by.

 

[Deleted member 194275]

for "Watching movies with all the streaming apps centralized in one single device with 4k and 7.1 sound"
You can grab the apps you use most from the microsoft store, as their interface usually is more similar with those on smart TVs and console apps. Netflix app, YouTube app and so on. It will be more TV friendly than using the web-browser.

for "play PC games in my living room"
You may use steam's big picture mode. It is free and works even if you have no steam games, as it allows you to add any .exe as a game.
There are two other options, one paid and one free, that in my opinion are way better interface wise than steam, witch are the following: hyperspin (free) and bigbox (the free part is not good, but the paid one is awesome), all of those works with steam and non steam games perfectly.

for "playing emulators"
You may do the same as you do for regular games, bigbox, lauchbox and steam big picture. Keep in mind that steam is not so emulation friendly as the other options.
Other path you can take is to flash a game specific OS, like batocera. It is super easy to set up for huge rom colections, and you can boot from any usb storage. The only negative of that option is the fact that in order to get in or out batocera (or other emustation distro you like) you need to reboot your PC.
You can flash steam OS on your pc too, I just have no idea how good it is working right now for devices other than steam deck.

 

[That1LoserGuy]

to change a cursor go to OS:/Windows/Cursors, and copy the one you want to change to a folder that is not in the os, go to www.cursor.cc and upload the cursor you want to edit, after editing, download the cursor, rename the cursor to what you want it to be called, now copy it to OS:/Windows/Cursors, now open settings, search for mouse settings, open mouse settings, press additional mouse options, pointers, now click the pointer you want changed, click browse, and select the pointer you want, now click apply

 

[SwedishGojira]

Do you have any sort of CEC funcionallity? Meaning, when you power off the computer the tv also powers off?

Because that would be great for me and i still couldnt find where to set this?

There is no built in support for CEC in Windows or PC's in general as all the major graphic card vendors feel it is not needed as too few would use it and it would cost them money to implement it in their graphics cards (as that is where the HDMI usually is located).

You can get an adapter from pulse eight that you put inbetween the computer that can implement CEC, but if you have a 4k signal going trough the HDMI it can be a bit troublesome. I have it and it is working perfectly, but not until I also got myself a 4K HDMI EDID-emulator dongle to solve the handshake problems between the TV and the PC so you might need that also if you want CEC.

A few NUC-models have CEC either built in or as a separate module that you can buy and install, but they are very few.