I recently bought a card for my PC which has a tv tuner and also rca inputs for audio and video. says it requires media center edition of windows on the box. I am running xp proffessional with sp2. I figure if i have to do it i will install a copy of media center edition. However, thats a lst resort andd i would like to avoid it if possible. Okay, heres the question. DOES MICROSOFT SELL A MEDIA CENTER ADD-ON TO WINDOWS XP PRO? LIKE A SOFTWARE COLLECTION THAT ALLOWS YOU TO USE THE FUNCTIONS OF MEDIA PLAYER WITHOUT LOSING ALL OF THE FUNCTIONS THAT ARE EXCLUSIVE TO XP PRO? All help is appreciated.

mkeegan, FWIW, Windows Knowledge Base returns quite a bit about it, hopefully, it'll help. See: http://support.microsoft.com/search/default.aspx?catalog=LCID%3D1033&1033comm=1&query=media+center+edition&pwt=false&title=false&kt=ALL&mdt=0&res=20&ast=1&ast=2&ast=3&mode=a&adv=1&spid=6794 HTH. Ed in Texas.

Question: DOES MICROSOFT SELL A MEDIA CENTER ADD-ON TO WINDOWS XP PRO? Answer: Nope. WMCE cannot be bought as a standalone retail product. It is sold preinstalled on OEM PCs only (don't ask me why - it's M$$). The standalone WMCE you may have seen on the net are counterfeits. Beware. i_XpUser

getting my hands on OEM software legally is no problem, i work for a distributor of bussiness systems. however since there is no addon, could this card be used on xp pro? or is media center my only option?

If the system requirements on the box & instruction sheet of the card specifies media center edition, you don't have a choice. Be careful with XP OEM software. If you are not a system builder in partnership with M$..... i_XpUser