Today Microsoft enabled the free upgrade from Windows 8 Pro to Windows 8 Pro with Windows Media Center. The offer is live from today until January 31st and only works with Windows 8 Pro, you can get the upgrade here.
After entering the product key and a rebooting you should have Windows Media Center on the Windows start screen.
So what do you get with Windows Media Center in Windows 8 over the Windows 7 version? Back in March I looked at the version of Windows Media Center in the consumer preview and found then that it was the same as the Windows 7 version and it looks like the RTM version is just the same.
In my initial look around Media Center I can’t see any changes, no new formats are supported and there are no new features. 12 months ago I would have been really disappointed with the lack of new features but since then I have resigned myself to accepting the Windows 7 version (which is excellent) and there will be no further developments on the platform. I tried a couple of addins and they seemed to work ok, I do know some older Media Center addins don’t work due to Media Center running under version 4 of the .net framework.
So if you have Windows 8 Pro grab the upgrade and get Media Center installed, you get the same great version as Windows 7 and it will work with existing tuner cards, DVBLink and other apps just don’t expect anything new in Windows Media Center.
Shame. After years of using Media Center as my main PVR, I switched to Humax about a year ago, and to be honest, haven’t looked back (despiting using multiple extenders, and two Homerun HDs). Shame, MS really dropped this one. They could have cornered the market if they’d kept it uptodate, and maybe released somekind of embedded PVR a few years ago. MCE was excellent in it’s day, but lack of new features such as Freeview+, and the time it took to get Freeview HD tuners have killed it IMO. It’s only good as a slightly convenient way to watch TV in a window on your desktop these days, IMO.
@Philip,
It doesn’t run WMC, but has there been a confirmation that Windows RT can’t be a WMC extender like the 360 can? I’m holding out some hope that it can.
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TDL Post: What’s new in the Windows 8 version Windows Media Center (hint nothing) – http://t.co/D80QAWSX
Shame. After years of using Media Center as my main PVR, I switched to Humax about a year ago, and to be honest, haven’t looked back (despiting using multiple extenders, and two Homerun HDs). Shame, MS really dropped this one. They could have cornered the market if they’d kept it uptodate, and maybe released somekind of embedded PVR a few years ago. MCE was excellent in it’s day, but lack of new features such as Freeview+, and the time it took to get Freeview HD tuners have killed it IMO. It’s only good as a slightly convenient way to watch TV in a window on your desktop these days, IMO.
Do you know if the key (sent by email) will allow Media Centre to be installed on multiple Windows 8 computers?
Also, given that you *cannot* install Media Centre onto Windows RT, any suggestions or thoughts on how to get WTV files to play on a Surface RT? 😉
Thanks.
@Philip,
It doesn’t run WMC, but has there been a confirmation that Windows RT can’t be a WMC extender like the 360 can? I’m holding out some hope that it can.