Want to buy MCE 2005 but shall I wait for Vista or can I get a free upgrade

[mark.carline]

I am building another MCE 2005 machine and wondered if I should buy MCE 2005 now or shall I wait until Vista is released??

I wondered if Microsoft will at some point be offering a "buy XP MCE 2005 now and get a free upgrade to Vista" when its released.

With Vista coming out soon (ish) I am not going to pay twice for an OS !

[Craig_E]

I was surprised to see MCE is only £60 online- not too bad for a complete operating system.

I doubt they would offer an upgrade, because Vista is going have like 5 or 6 different versions, and it would probably get too confusing for 'consumers'.

Vista isn't going to be until Jan 2007 at the earliest, and by then, there are going to be some cool and interesting new developments that will make you want a new PC anyway (flash memory on the motherboard, HD/Blu-Ray drives, new Intel chip, etc)

So I'd say bite the bullet and get MCE now, or wait 9 months to build your new PC

[chuwright]

No official release date has been set for Vista, you may be in for a long wait. I wouldn't hold my breath expecting a free upgrade program either.

[paulm187]

MCE 2005 is OEMs and upgrade to vista will not be possible. As mentioned, you can either wait 9 months for Vista or just bite the bullet and build your pc now with MCE2005. Even when Vista is released, there will be bugs in OS, device drivers and incompatible applications. New hardware will be expensive and buggy. I would wait a further 6 months for all issues to be ironed out. This means the best time to upgrade would be the summer of 2007. You could either:

1) Build a PC with the cheapest hardware and upgrade them all next summer

2) Build a PC with the best components that is capable of running Vista in the future (eg Dual core ) but:
a) Spend as little as possible on a graphic card with minimum spec since you would need to upgrade to a true HDMI/HDCP compliant card in the future for HD playback.
b) Spend as little as possible on a DVD drive since you would upgrade this in the future to blu-ray/HD-DVD
c) Don't buy a new monitor unless it has HDMI/DVI and HDCP compliant.

[mark.carline]

Originally Posted by Craig_E

I was surprised to see MCE is only £60 online- not too bad for a complete operating system.

Wow - where is this from ?

It take it this is a proper copy including CDs etc - I am aware theres lots of pirate copies knocking around on the internet and as from April this year these people are going to get caught out by microsofts new genuine tool

[HiZ]

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/98253 a bit over but not bad!

[Craig_E]

I can't remember where exactly, it was one of the companies that send out emails with deals from time to time: www.aria.co.uk or www.komplett.co.uk probably

EDIT: Sorry, just checked and I must have been suckered in with a exc. VAT price! Or maybe it was a 'deal of the day' http://www.aria.co.uk/DealForToday.asp or something...

[Evil Pete]

Originally Posted by Craig_E

I was surprised to see MCE is only £60 online- not too bad for a complete operating system.

Where from, if you don't mind me asking?