Upgrade from Microsoft Media Centre 2005

[Louise07]

A friend has just used my PC to order a Dell PC with Microsoft Media Centre 2005 installed on it. I'm now wondering if this was the best option as I have Windows XP SP2 on my own PC. Once the PC arrives is it possible to upgrade by downloading XP SP2? I'm not sure what the difference is, it's just I know XP SP2 but I dont know the media centre 2005.

[jennifer_cro]

Media Center is more of an application than an Operating system.

The PC will have Windows XP SP2 on it and to run the media center bit you simply run the application from within Windows.

Hope this helps.

Jen

[Potatoman]

jennifer_cro is right, it should come with SP2. However, Media Center Edition is not "more of an application". According to the Microsoft website, it is Windows XP Pro with added features. It has ALL the features of Pro.

[Mattk]

windows media centre is good but if that is your friends reason for ordering a new pc then maybe their thinking is flawed as Windows Vista,the brand new operating system is out later this year.

[jennifer_cro]

As we know Microsoft also lie quite a bit, a Media Center PC is simply an XP SP2 build with the Media Center Application included.

You can even download Media Center and run it on any XP build, however if you don't have supported hardware it won't work very well.