Windows XP Media Edition

[Nicely]

I've got a mate who's really struggling to get a copy of Windows XP Media Edition. Apparently Microbotch are making it very difficult to get copies not preinstalled on Media Centres.

He wants to build his own Media Centre, so needs a stand alone copy.

Any ideas? Please only post legal solutions. :) PM me if not. :nod:

[Jonny]

I've tried as well...

You can't even get it with the enterprise CDs or select... It's OEM only, supplied to builders of the MS-Certified mediaPC's... :(

[gaz.thomas]

I'm pretty sure that, due to the deliberately constrained hardware support, MS are justifiably not willing to put XPMC on general release so it's going to be difficult to find a copy.

Unless, of course, your friend ;) was part of the MSDN and had a media subscription. I would venture that the OS pack would include a copy and if it's anything like my previous experience of MSDN media it wouldn't need a serial number or activation either.

Gaz
-x-

[Jonny]

I would venture that the OS pack would include a copy and if it's anything like my previous experience of MSDN media it wouldn't need a serial number or activation either.


It doesn't... You get patches for it, but not the installation media.. :(

[RohanC]

PM me :)

My mate has built one with a chipped xBox using some special software ( http://www.xboxmediacenter.de/ )

Plays nigh on everthing, DivX, Xvid, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC etc.

Depends if he wants to capture stuff i suppose.

[Nicely]

Thanks for that. He needs record ability though. :)

[Jonny]

Thanks for that. He needs record ability though. :)

Tried linux stuff like mythtv and similar?

Does pretty much everything, with a spiffy front end...

[Ant]

The reason Microsoft want to tie the Media Edition to new machines is so that they can minimise technical problems as to attract your average home/living room user. Let's face it, many (obviously, not all) problems that occur with Windows nowadays tends to be driver issues, bios problems and general hardware incompatibility. A solid, reliable reputation is required if they're going to break the market into people's living rooms where the tolerance levels of failure are much much lower than your average PC builder.

How annoyed would you be if you're DVD player/TV crashed every so often? It's unheard of isn't it. :)

[Nicely]

Which is fair enough. The way round that would be to sell an OEM version with no support (which is exactly what would come preinstalled).

[Ant]

Which is fair enough. The way round that would be to sell an OEM version with no support (which is exactly what would come preinstalled).

I completely agree. :)

[antony]

you have pm

[Method0ne]

Ah, missed the "only legal" part, my bad.

PM sent.

[Nicely]

Thanks people. Got quite a few ideas now. :thumbs:

[Dave_S]

I've tried as well...

You can't even get it with the enterprise CDs or select... It's OEM only, supplied to builders of the MS-Certified mediaPC's... :(

It was available for download to the full MSDN subscription people.

It's not that great, I ditched it after about a week because it's SOOO unconfigurable. It looks nice but thats about it. I'm now using a minimal XP installation with myHTPC (http://myhtpc.net) software on top, much better :nod:

XP MCE is only a program that runs on top of XP anyhow, it's not even a full special OS (like I thought)

Dave

[Nicely]

Cheers for that, Dave. :)

[mattpayne]

im with Dave, i had XP media centre... My HTPC is much better... but i have a CD at home, it might be blank ;) pm your address and ill post it to you...

[Nicely]

Thanks for the offer. Someone has already donated their totally legal copy already. :D

Looks like my mate is going to go the MyHTPC route having spent an entire morning reading through the extensive web site. :nod:

[gaz.thomas]

If that cd happened to find its way to my place I'd certainly look after it ;-)

Gaz
-x-

[mattpayne]

gaz, drop me a pm and Ill send you a post card :D