Pictures as promised

I had to go to a third party application to stitch my pre-work photos together which is why this took so long (also.. see my previous post).

I have a bunch of photos I want to post of the backyard adventure, but I know none of you faithful readers really gives a damn.  So here you go.. A pre-work panoramic shot, and a current state panoramic shot.  Its very nice to have a usable back yard.

How it used to be

How it is now

I give up.

Fail.
I give up.  Apparently the only way I am going to solve my photo editing problems is to reinstall windows.  They aren't real problems, and its not a problem with photos.  The problem seem to be with my windows 7 libraries and no amount of rebuilding the databases seems to do any good.  Windows just refuses to properly link the libraries to the programs that rely on them.. like windows live photo gallery (supposed to be the native solution for photo corrections and stitching images together into panoramic shots) and also windows media center (which I use in almost every room of the house). 
This systemic issue has limited the usability of my entire home network of machines.  My media just does not go the places it is supposed to go.  Want to play music from the media center in the living room?  Nope.. the computer is pretty sure there is absolutely no music available on any computer anywhere to play.  Want to look at you photos?  Nope.. sorry, there are no photos on any computer anywhere.. ever.  Period.  Stop asking.
Never mind that if you open the library in say.. explorer.. sure enough everything is there.  If you open a specific file.. sure enough.. there it is.  Ever try to play a play list by manually browsing your network paths using an xbox controller to select and play each individual file?  Of course you haven't because that would be ridiculous.

"Just use itunes.. or a mac.. it just works."  Shut up. You're an idiot.  You really think their god awful solutions would really work better in my situation or perform the functions I need them to?

I think the root of this issue is my use of a home server (i.e. network shares) coupled with some difficult system recoveries instead of a fresh install.  I now recover my system from back ups instead of doing fresh installs (when things like SSDs go bad) because the cable companies (and specifically COX) feel the need to encrypt and control all their media.  This means that if I wipe my machine and start fresh, especially if I do any hardware changes in the process, I have a pretty good chance of locking out playback of any of my recorded TV. 

I guess the answer is to catch up on all my recorded shows and then delete them all so I no longer have any ties to my system in its current configuration.
Come to think of it, unless I do an "upgrade", when I move to windows 8 I will have the same problem.  Just to be clear, this is the cable companies fault, not Microsoft's.