Is there much difference between XP Pro and XP Media Center?
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I'm looking for a new laptop and a lot of them seem to offer only XP Home or XP Media Center. The only real difference I've been able to find[^]is that MCE can't connect to a domain (which is not an issue for me) and there's only 2 years of security updates after Vista is released. But am I going to find compatibility issues if I develop under MCE but my customers run XP Pro (or other versions of Windows)? A post here[^] even suggests that if you enter a XP Pro license key during setup, you get XP Pro installed instead :-)
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Well MCE is actually XP Pro (minus a couple of features). But I would recommenced against it for the simple reason that Microsoft does NOT support it. That's right, I had a compatibility with some 3rd party software and MS hung up on me. I then called Dell and i was met by the standard: "This support centre is mainly for hardware problems, but I will try looking for an answer in the MS knowledge base." BTW, does anyone know how to get composite television (AV) picked up by Media Centre?
Brad Australian Have you tried Rebooting it?
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Well MCE is actually XP Pro (minus a couple of features). But I would recommenced against it for the simple reason that Microsoft does NOT support it. That's right, I had a compatibility with some 3rd party software and MS hung up on me. I then called Dell and i was met by the standard: "This support centre is mainly for hardware problems, but I will try looking for an answer in the MS knowledge base." BTW, does anyone know how to get composite television (AV) picked up by Media Centre?
Brad Australian Have you tried Rebooting it?
Bradml wrote:
Microsoft does NOT support it.
How does that work, Microsoft refusing to support a Microsoft product? AFAICT, Media Center just looks like a program suite that sits on top of XP. There are some hardware requirements for it to work but other than that, I can't see why it's such a big deal. I actually don't really want the media stuff, it's just that if I get a new computer that has it, I want to know if I'm going to need to get a copy of XP Pro as well.
0 bottles of beer on the wall, 0 bottles of beer, you take 1 down, pass it around, 4294967295 bottles of beer on the wall. Awasu 2.2.3 [^]: A free RSS/Atom feed reader with support for Code Project.
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Well MCE is actually XP Pro (minus a couple of features). But I would recommenced against it for the simple reason that Microsoft does NOT support it. That's right, I had a compatibility with some 3rd party software and MS hung up on me. I then called Dell and i was met by the standard: "This support centre is mainly for hardware problems, but I will try looking for an answer in the MS knowledge base." BTW, does anyone know how to get composite television (AV) picked up by Media Centre?
Brad Australian Have you tried Rebooting it?
Bradml wrote:
But I would recommenced against it for the simple reason that Microsoft does NOT support it.
Which is ironic when they keep telling us that we need to get Media Center so we can stream videos to an Xbox360 Did MCE come pre-installed, or did you install it yourself? Maybe that's the issue (since it's only meant to come pre-installed on new PCs)
-- Help me! I'm turning into a grapefruit! Buzzwords!
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Bradml wrote:
Microsoft does NOT support it.
How does that work, Microsoft refusing to support a Microsoft product? AFAICT, Media Center just looks like a program suite that sits on top of XP. There are some hardware requirements for it to work but other than that, I can't see why it's such a big deal. I actually don't really want the media stuff, it's just that if I get a new computer that has it, I want to know if I'm going to need to get a copy of XP Pro as well.
0 bottles of beer on the wall, 0 bottles of beer, you take 1 down, pass it around, 4294967295 bottles of beer on the wall. Awasu 2.2.3 [^]: A free RSS/Atom feed reader with support for Code Project.
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Bradml wrote:
But I would recommenced against it for the simple reason that Microsoft does NOT support it.
Which is ironic when they keep telling us that we need to get Media Center so we can stream videos to an Xbox360 Did MCE come pre-installed, or did you install it yourself? Maybe that's the issue (since it's only meant to come pre-installed on new PCs)
-- Help me! I'm turning into a grapefruit! Buzzwords!
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Bradml wrote:
No came on my new Dell
Which is exaclty why your product is supported by DELL NOT MS. You have an OEM product that the vendor "DELL" has agreed to be the responsible party for all support and alleviate MS from ALL responsiblity.
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Well MCE is actually XP Pro (minus a couple of features). But I would recommenced against it for the simple reason that Microsoft does NOT support it. That's right, I had a compatibility with some 3rd party software and MS hung up on me. I then called Dell and i was met by the standard: "This support centre is mainly for hardware problems, but I will try looking for an answer in the MS knowledge base." BTW, does anyone know how to get composite television (AV) picked up by Media Centre?
Brad Australian Have you tried Rebooting it?
If you acquired Windows from an OEM, or otherwise have an OEM copy of Windows, your support contact is that OEM. That's the major difference between an off-the-shelf packaged copy of Windows and an OEM copy. You get some free support incidents with a packaged copy.
Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder
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Bradml wrote:
No came on my new Dell
Which is exaclty why your product is supported by DELL NOT MS. You have an OEM product that the vendor "DELL" has agreed to be the responsible party for all support and alleviate MS from ALL responsiblity.
Michael A. Barnhart wrote:
Which is exaclty why your product is supported by DELL NOT MS. You have an OEM product that the vendor "DELL" has agreed to be the responsible party for all support and alleviate MS from ALL responsiblity.
Yes, but you can't get MCE off the shelf. You can only ever get it from Dell/IBM/whatever. So that is why it is a bad idea. Sorry if my point wasn't clear enough
Brad Australian Have you tried Rebooting it?
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Michael A. Barnhart wrote:
Which is exaclty why your product is supported by DELL NOT MS. You have an OEM product that the vendor "DELL" has agreed to be the responsible party for all support and alleviate MS from ALL responsiblity.
Yes, but you can't get MCE off the shelf. You can only ever get it from Dell/IBM/whatever. So that is why it is a bad idea. Sorry if my point wasn't clear enough
Brad Australian Have you tried Rebooting it?
Bradml wrote:
So that is why it is a bad idea.
Got it. No problems. :rose:
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Michael A. Barnhart wrote:
Which is exaclty why your product is supported by DELL NOT MS. You have an OEM product that the vendor "DELL" has agreed to be the responsible party for all support and alleviate MS from ALL responsiblity.
Yes, but you can't get MCE off the shelf. You can only ever get it from Dell/IBM/whatever. So that is why it is a bad idea. Sorry if my point wasn't clear enough
Brad Australian Have you tried Rebooting it?
Bradml wrote:
Yes, but you can't get MCE off the shelf. You can only ever get it from Dell/IBM/whatever.
Not strictly true. You used to be able to get it on an MSDN subscription covering operating systems although I don't know if you still can as I don't have one anymore :-( [edit] Spelling again :-O [/edit]
Rhys I'm glad I'm not Brezhnev. Being the Russian leader in the Kremlin, you never know if someone's tape-recording what you say. Richard Nixon