Thinkpads Forum

Looking for non-registered copy of Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 at a reasonable price for a home theater project.

Look here at Newegg This is what you want. XP MCE 2005 is available in OEM only.

You might want ti think about getting Vista Home Premium. It has an updated/intergrated version of MCE in it.

Yes, I've been going back and forth on the MCE vs. Vista Home Premium (VHP?) - I'm sure I'll try Vista at some point but didn't really want to start in the living room. All of the content protection and DRM stuff added to Vista for high-def content is also not too appealing. If this were 6 months from now and the driver support for tuners, video, etc. were better sorted out I think Visa would be (will be) my first choice. First choice for a HTPC that is - at this point I'd pick a Mac over Vista for just about anything else - I just wish Apple would sell us OS X for use on other hardware like ThinkPads.

And thanks for the pointer to NewEgg - I buy a lot from them and the OEM price of $110 is very good - was just hoping to find a cheaper unused copy up here as I've had good luck with what I bought here in the past. I may have found a Dell OEM one but not sure it can be used on non-Dell hardware (will have to try it I guess)

BTW on NewEgg the OEM price for VHP is $120 and Vista Ultimate is only $200.

One question to anyone who might know: Under XP MCE can you control file share access at the level of individual users like you can in XP Pro or are you limited to just a choice of r/w or r/o access control like you get with XP Home? Thanks.

I don't know for sure, but I think that Windows XP MCE is just XP pro with the MCE program and a new skin. Never used it in my life to know this, but is what I have heard. If that is the case, then you will have the same network capabilities as Windows XP Pro.