I have XP Med Ctr 2005 on both a laptop and the other partition on this
machine, and am using W7 Pro right now.
In essence XPMC2005 is XP Pro... at least that is the way Belarc Advisor
reports it, along with other scanning tools. It has many more networking
options, and I'm sure some that I haven't discovered or had a need to
discover. The media center part of it is, for lack of words, bloated. I use
the laptop as a source for a DJ rig, thinking that eventually all that extra
stuff would come in handy... but not! Fortunately the machine came with it
preinstalled so no loss.
W7 Pro is like a whole different animal in that it is built on a Vista
platform, and uses lots more graphic resources. I haven't played around with
any other version of 7 other than the RC which was only a trial and will
begin to act up next month. I did speak to a M$ representative, and to the
best of their knowledge, support for XP will continue through 2014 if I
remember that conversation correctly but please don't quote me on this...
I'm old!
Now the breakdown IMHO:
W95... junk
W98... a little better than junk
WME... complete disaster
XP... OK
Vista... better than all the above (when you get used to it)
W7... someone at M$ is getting the message but a graphics hog
All the different versions (home, pro, etc.) but they have taken what seems
to be the best of XP and Vista, dropped them into a food processor, waved a
wand over it and presto... yet another new OS! At least I liked W7 well
enough to get it right away and not wait till they address the inevitable
infestation of bugs they all seemed to have.
I'll quit here. The choice is yours at the end of the day, but this I will
say. I'm glad I didn't wait. They are starting to get it at least somewhat
right. Now they really need to address viruses without costing us a small
fortune!
Good luck,
Dean
-----Original Message-----
From: Personal Computer Hardware discussion List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Phillip Williams
Sent: Tuesday, February 16, 2010 11:28 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [PCBUILD] xp media center 2005
Greetings to all,
I'm close to having all the components for a new build (listed below)
lacking only the case and operating system. I hear good things about
windows 7 but I've become so familiar with xp, I'm hesitant to change.
Since only w7 pro has the xp compatibility mode I would most likely go
with that but looking at os's at Tigerdirect, I see media center is quite a
bit
cheaper and this pc will be used forhome entertainment, music and
video production, photo editing, gamingand an occasional bit of turbo
cad.
Other than os activation, it will not be connected to the internet.
So far, all my builds have been xp home though I have liked what I've
read about xp pro such as the ability to use on multiple machines(?).
What I'm wondering is if any of you can tell how media center compares
to both xp home and pro and if ending support for xp will cause any
difficulties later. wouldn't having all drivers backed up to cd take
care of the support issue? Or even a total drive image using Acronis
True Image?
My components are:
-ECS G31T-M mobo (micro atx)
-(2) 2gig sticks of corsair xms2 DDR2 ram
-450 watt PS
-Intel Q9600 Quad processor
-Optiarc DVD RW (AD 7200A) drive
-WD caviar 320g sata hd
(will add a graphics card and a second HD later)
All feed-back is greatly appreciated!
-Phil Williams-
PCBUILD's List Owners:
Bob Wright<[log in to unmask]>
Mark Rode<[log in to unmask]>
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 9.0.733 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2690 - Release Date: 02/15/10
13:35:00
PCBUILD's List Owners:
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Mark Rode<[log in to unmask]>
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