What is the difference between Media Center and normal Windows XP? I'm asking this mainly because I want to stream videos from my PC through my '360. If I was to install Windows Media Center on a new hard disk, would my existing WinXP programs still work?
This question has been asked many many times, someone should make a FAQ Anyway, the only difference is that with MCE you can't join a domain. Apart from that XP Pro and XP Mce are identical (apart from the obvious). If you installed XP Pro on hard drive #1, and then XP Mce on hard drive #2. Then yes, your XP Pro programs would still work. As you are dual booting.
Oki doki cheers, sorry for asking the question again. Haven't actually been bothered to look through pages and pages of posts to see if it had been asked before, so many threads get created, it could be on page 27 for all i know. Cheers for the help tho!
I personally think Media Centre is a complete waste of time, it's great for the Xbox's extended thing but on a normal PC?? Why limit what a normal PC is capable of just for the sake of a more simple user interface? You can stream media etc with any XP version and use them as PVR's. Just my opnion that I don't see the point of it. Or can you only stream media to a 360 with MCE and not any other XP version?
The only downside of MCE over XP is not being able to join a domain (see above post) which most people don't need. Apart from that they operating systems are the same, but MCE has an extra app.
Im using mecia center on my sony laptop, ease of use with the media center capabilities is perfect, program guides, music, picture albums, on digital tv recording etc, like the above poster said the ONLY difference is that you cant join a domain, otherwise all office programs/games/internet/work as normal. You can do more between a 360 and media cente pc than you can between xp pro and a 360.