XP: Media Center Edition '05 vs. Professional SP2

[Ravendust]

It's come to the point after four years that my family are giving the old computer to charity and buying a brand new machine. We're getting a fairly good deal, but there's one thing holding me back from giving it the all-clear, which is that it comes with a choice of OS's. Windows XP Media Center Edition '05 comes included in the price, or for £30 ($50) we can get Windows XP Professional SP2 instead. The budget for the machine has been stretched a bit so i'd rather not upgrade the OS unless there's a good reason. My question is; if I stick with the Media Center Edition will there be things I can't do that I would be able to with Professional? Will it still be able to network? Play games? Etc? Any advantages/disadvantages of one OS over the other?

Any help would be greatly appreciated as we're buying it by the end of the new week.

 

[|Overlord|]

Networking support wil lstill be possible as a lot of consumer boards intended for media pcs are shipping with onboard lan (and if it doesn't you can always add a netowrk card anyway, but that wouldn't be the case I don't think).

Media center is mostly built of xp with some more features & is usually only avalible with a new pc from a shop or a oem.

 

[Smith|]

It's come to the point after four years that my family are giving the old computer to charity and buying a brand new machine. We're getting a fairly good deal, but there's one thing holding me back from giving it the all-clear, which is that it comes with a choice of OS's. Windows XP Media Center Edition '05 comes included in the price, or for £30 ($50) we can get Windows XP Professional SP2 instead. The budget for the machine has been stretched a bit so i'd rather not upgrade the OS unless there's a good reason. My question is; if I stick with the Media Center Edition will there be things I can't do that I would be able to with Professional? Will it still be able to network? Play games? Etc? Any advantages/disadvantages of one OS over the other?

Any help would be greatly appreciated as we're buying it by the end of the new week.

Media Center gets a little desktop icon that opens up a super Windows Media Player sort of thing, haha. Professional SP2 is fine.

 

[Ravendust]

So is there really any reason to pay extra for Professional if Media Center does all the same stuff?

 

[Smith|]

There are some differences, but nothing you'll be dieing for.

 

[Ravendust]

Well all it's going to be used for is gaming (Source stuff mainly), word processing and the usual PC stuff (pics, music e.t.c) so I guess that's fine.

Thanks Smith and Overlord =)

 

[Smith|]

Glad I could 'help' .

I like having the smilies back!