XP Professional or XP MCE???

Here is the scoop.

I have purchased a 1705 with MCE. It came with the MCE CD. I also have an unused copy of XP Professional. I am pondering slicking the laptop with a new OS to get rid of all the Dell junk and to have a clean install for performance. I have no need for the laptop to be part of a domain. I intend to use the PC for graphics, music and watching DVDs in addition to surfing and spreadsheets. See my signature for the hardware specs of the laptop.

If you were in my situation, which OS would you install?

 

I have computers with XP pro and several with MCE. There really isnt a lot of diffrence but the MCE does have a few toys that are kind of nice, especially if you use a TV tunner card. The only thing pro has that mce doesnt is the domain stuff.

 

I would go MCE; the only thing it lacks that pro has is the ability to join a domain; but there's a hack available to enable in MCE anyway.

 

i dont know if you can install the xp pro cd on ur mce notebook i tried going to xp pro from mce and it didnt work because all my drivers and such where set up to use mce.

 

OS switches work better when you use a fresh install. Installing over top is not the most desirable way to go. I imagine that the drivers are indifferent to the various flavors of XP.

 

i didnt i deleted the partitions, it still didnt work, i couldnt install the modem and it didnt pick up my audio hardware thus not being able to install my audio drivers.

 

I think MCE would be better. But it really depends what type of a person are you.

Do you need hard drive encryption, are you a business person?

Or are you a media enthusiast? Do you have lots of music, movies and photos?

But I still prefer MCE.

 

I'd recommend XP, my bro who got his Dell with MCE had problems installing SP2 on it that we just gave up on it.. (I'm sure it doesn't happen to everyone) But I'd recommend XP over it.

 

mce is bs when it comes to playin music. im sure theres a way to stop it from adding files to its library. but everytime i play music from my external hard drive it adds the file into mce and then when i unplug it and go and play them it always says cannot play it annoys me. i know why it doesnt play because the file isnt there. i just wish it would stop doing that.

 

You could just use XP Professional and look for free alternatives to mce. I know there are some (don't remember their names) for Windows and several for Linux (such as Geexbox and MythTV). The following PVR forums might help you out: http://forum.byopvr.com/dvr/

 

Why do u want to change MCE ? just uninstall the Dell junk as you said .. and it will be fine .. used MCE for a while didnt seem to be a problematic o/s .

 

Well folks, it is pretty much a draw. I appreciate your time.

MCE is actually growing on me. I think I if/when I reformat, I will put MCE back on.

Thanks again.

 

Check this out if you ever need to join a domain.