What do you do w/ your MCE Dell?

I'm trying to figure a nice way of getting the most out of my e1505 with MCE. Are there any clever things you can do with it via a wireless network with your TV? Is there any sort of wireless TV tuner/video device out there short of an MCE extender box?

What I'm trying to grasp is the benefit of having MCE on a laptop. I can see having it on a desktop which can be permanantly connected to a TV or wirelessly connected to an extender. Isn't it sort of clunky to have a USB video tuner dangling by your TV for you to connect to your laptop when you want to view things on your hard drive, not to mention remembering to connect your USB device *and* schedule recordings if you regularly record TV.

 

I really can't think of anything terribly exciting that MCE offers over Home. Personally, I've never even used the Media Center option. Hopefully someone will have some revelation as to its brilliance...

 

Well, I'm certainly not knocking MCE if you have it installed directly to a TV full time. I'll admit that it's a slick interface...I'm just not so convinced of its purpose on a laptop.

 

exactly, it doesn't really have too much purpose. is there way to get rid of it?

 

reload your OS and use Home or Pro or whatever else you want.

 

Yeah, install XP Pro

 

I'm going to do a fresh install with 20GB partitioned for windows soon, but i 'm just going to go with MCE since i don't readily have XP Pro available and i dont necessarily need the extra networking and whatnot.

Also, this pertains to my reformat not MCE specifically. Can I use the windows hard disk backup option to just put all my stuff on my external HD? Further, once i do a fresh install and set everything up, can i just make a direct copy of C: using the windows tool to my external and have a backup of my hd as i want it in case of future reformatting or emergency?

 

MCE is most of pro bur ir cannot join a domain I believe. It has most of the networking / security stuff from pro.

 

yet it costs the same as home.

 

anyone know anything about my backup question?

 

I have MCE on my laptop, and I use it almost every day.

I use it in conjunction with my xbox 360 (see my screen name).

I stream audio and video files through my surround sound system and on my hdtv.

It is much more enjoyable to experience the media through the full home theater setup.

 

I would never let windows backup anything of mine. I'd do it myself. Just cant trust them to back it up properly.

Secondly, the other thing you mentioned about saving a copy of your C drive. That's already been being done for years. Welcome to the world of ghosting. Download Norton Ghost and save an image of your C drive.

 

i know about ghost, just wondering if anything else is out there shy of software. i'll just drag and drop my documents onto the external and check out ghost for after the reformat.