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Win XP Home Edition or the Media Center Edition? What is the difference?

Home and Media Center are basically the same thing, unless you're running a media center setup. But you left out Pro, which is what you really should be getting. Never mind the networking changes, they probably won't matter. Never mind the other little stuff that makes Pro a better OS. Pro lets you log into Administrator in normal mode. Home does not. You would not believe the number of times I've had to nuke a customer's system from high orbit because of that.

You would not believe the number of times I've had to nuke a customer's system from high orbit because of that.

Really? I've never found that a problem, anything system level you can do in Normal Mode you can do in Safe Mode. In fact, with most users I prefer having an account they can't get into and fuck up.

I'd go with Pro, assuming you're skilled with computers, for the reasons White Haven stated. Of course, if barely know how to turn on computer, go with Home, for the simple reason Vendetta states.

Only worry about Media Center if you want your computer to be part of a home entertain system (which a coworker of mine seriously wants to do, and I'd probably be a fun project).

If you're buying the OS, there are a few factors as to why you shouldn't buy Pro:

1. £90 more. Not insignificant.
2. Extra networking features irrelevant in a peer to peer system. Unless you're running a server/client network, you don't need them.
3. The extra features in the MMC are not significant in a single user environment. They are useful for a system administration of large numbers of users, not for a single system with a small number of users.

Seriously, if you're paying for your OS, don't pay for some 'cachet' of having XPP and thinking you're getting a 'better' system when you won't use any of it.

(The more techy people are, the more often they make that mistake)

Media Center is also licensed only for factory-built PCs specifically designed for it, afaik. So basically either you get a pre-built box just for MC, or you run vanilla XP.

You can get Media Center from Newegg. Its OEM, so you'll have to buy some hardware with it.

General Zod wrote:Media Center is also licensed only for factory-built PCs specifically designed for it, afaik. So basically either you get a pre-built box just for MC, or you run vanilla XP.

The reason I asked is because there was two systems my father and I were looking at. One used Home and the other used Media Center.

Thanks for the ideas but my father went with the system with the Media Center Edition.

1. £90 more. Not insignificant.

Its $20-50$ more stateside