Windows 2005 MCE for sale as a standalone OS

[electron]

Looks like Directron started selling the OEM version of Microsoft Windows Media Center 2005 through their online store, eventho Microsoft just announced yesterday it will not be for sale at retail:

http://www.directron.com/xpmedia.html

 

[smee]

That puts it a little cheaper than an OEM copy of XP Pro. Is there a reason to get XP Pro instead of MCE 2005? I haven't been following closely enough to see the differences, but I thought MCE was XP Pro with extras? Has anything been removed?

 

[electron]

They disabled support for Windows domains if you do a clean install (upgrading a domain computer will keep that functionality), to avoid companies from buying MCE to save some money. Rumor is that you can still specify a domain during setup when doing a clean install, and there are other work arounds. This will be interesting for sure. MCE 2005 is indeed XP Pro with SP2 and the MCE software.

 

[Rupp]

What are the hardware requirements?

 

[electron]

if you have a MS passport, you can find all that information and much more at:
http://oem.microsoft.com/mceready

Basically, they are similar to the MCE2004 requirements, which is a relative fast system, 64meg video memory, a tuner which is compatible (i.e. the Hauppauge PVR series), and plenty of HD space.

 

[electron]

I am not sure if you require a passport to see the following URL, but in case you can see it, check out this FAQ, it has some really good questions and answers: http://oem.microsoft.com/script/contentpag...x?pageid=552870