Windows XP Media Center Edition?

[RenatoRodrigues]

Are there any issues with installing XP Media Center in a Guest Machine? I noticed it's not on the selection list of the New Machine wizard, only XP Home and XP Pro.

[IamTHEvilONE]

you're right that Windows XP Media center is not in the list. It's really not that different from XP Home/Pro other than the inclusion of some software that you won't find in them. It specifically included PVR software amongst other items.

I don't see any harm in trying ... what's the worst that can happen ... you delete a virtual machine? Another downside is that you'd need a USB based Tuner to send data into it for PVR purposes. (i.e. not a PCI Card). (i think)

However, from an official standpoint ... if something did go wrong ... it's not supported

Regards,

Jonathan

B.Sc., RHCT, VMware vExpert 2009

NOTE: If your problem or questions has been resolved, please mark this thread as answered and award points accordingly.

[asatoran]

Windows XP Media Center Edition (XP-MCE) is a modified Windows XP Pro. You can choose XP-Pro in the guest OS list.

Where you most likely will be disappointed is that the Media Center app requires a video card with 256MB of video RAM. Current VMware virtual machines can only provide 128MB of video RAM. So the Media Center app can't play any video, let alone work with any TV tuner. Media Center in Vista and Win7 work with just 64MB of video RAM so it is possible to virtualize those OS' for Media Center. However video playback is still not very good. I still get many dropped frames. If your goal in installing XP-MCE is not to run Media Center, but just to use the Windows, then you'll be fine.

That said, most copies of XP-MCE were sold preinstalled on "home theatre" systems, so are often OEM or OEM branded versions of Windows. Which means that you may have trouble activating Windows after installation. Depending on the version, Windows may still run for a few days in a trial mode before requiring reactivation. Your best chance of success is if your copy of XP-MCE is a MSDN or System Builder version (a.k.a. whitebox version) since they're not tied to any specific hardware. (I won't get in to the legal bits about whether you are allowed to run an OEM or System Builder version in a virtual machine. Most often, it's "if you have to ask, you probably aren't a system builder nor a OEM. So you probably aren't allowed to use that version.")