The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Windows Media Center vs. Pro

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by nmsystms, Dec 22, 2006.

  1. nmsystms

    nmsystms Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    49
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    I recently purchased an Asus G1, which is suppose to come in later today. It comes pre-installed with Windows Media Center. I also have Windows XP Pro.

    Should I just leave Media Center on the system, or format and install pro? Which operating system is better and why?
     
  2. jetstar

    jetstar Notebook Deity

    Reputations:
    1,095
    Messages:
    7,034
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    205
    If you have a lot of pictures, movies, songs, etc...leave the Media Center. Otherwise, get XP Pro.
     
  3. nmsystms

    nmsystms Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    49
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    How is XP Pro better?
     
  4. Methuselah

    Methuselah Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    36
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    From the microsoft site itself.
     
  5. lmychajluk

    lmychajluk Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    31
    Messages:
    595
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Right. If you have no need to be on a Domain, there's not really any other major reason to switch it to Pro. If you don't know what a Domain is, you don't need it.
     
  6. iza

    iza Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    449
    Messages:
    647
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Even if you do need to join a domain, there is a hack available to enable domain joining in MCE.
     
  7. Private-Cowboy

    Private-Cowboy Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    21
    Messages:
    232
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    There are other things to it than just that. I went from MCE to Pro for different reasons. If you don't need that MCE bloatware crap, XP Pro is smaller and lighter. It runs less proesses in the background and uses much less MBs on the HDD. And WMP11 does a wonderful job playing your music, images and videos. There is really no reason to go MCE if you care about performance and space requirements.
     
  8. Fred from NYC

    Fred from NYC Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    64
    Messages:
    501
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    30
    I would keep Windows Media Center just to save the time and effort needed to reinstall an operating system.