Help please setting up my media center pc

[newstuart]

I have just built a new pc to use solely as a MCE 2005 system here is the spec
Athlon xp 3000+
2 x 512 mb ram
1 40 Gb hardrive with system on
1 200 gb hardrive for video TS files and recorded TV files (hopefully will be 2 200gb hardrives soon (see my other thread on here,problems with one of the hardrives)
Hauppage TV card (to be fed with Sky via S vid conversion box)
soundblaster sound card
Creative GeForce 3 Titanium Graphics card

The Liscenced dvd drivers i have the options of using are,
Power dvd version 6 deluxe edition
Nvidia DVD decoder

The main priority is realibility and speed of use. Internet surfing and any other pc duties will be done via a different pc on the network, my main questions are,

1) I have installed a completley clean MCE 2005 but not yet connected to internet to register and download updates, should I download all updates as I read about problems with some of them ?

2) What, if any windows components should I remove from this install ? I want the system to be as simple and realible as possible and will not use this pc for anything other than the MCE app.

3) Should I disable system restore as i read this can cause problems and use memory ?

4) What drivers should I install for the Graphics card (it will be running a plasma screen via VGA as no DVI input but the screen can handle high def reasoultions

5) Same question for the TV card

6) Is there anything else anyone can recomend me doing to help with my priorities for this machine ?

As always your advice and help is much appreciated

[newstuart]

anyone ?

[dejongj]

Just do the upload...I never bothered removing stuff from my install, nor did I disable system remote...Install the latest drivers...Run the plasma at its native resolution, not a higher one even though it can accept it, it just scales it down again...

Just experiement and enjoy it....