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You may be excited about getting the latest version of Windows and with Windows 8 being available on MSDN yesterday you may be thinking of upgrading your Media Center PC. If you are I would hold off for now, the versions available on MSDN don’t including Windows Media Center. Earlier this year Microsoft said that Windows Media Center wouldn’t be included in Windows 8 and you would need the Pro pack with Windows Media Center to get DVD and Media Center features.

On MSDN there is the enterprise edition (which doesn’t support Media Center) and the standard version. Then depending on which product key you enter you get either the Pro edition or the the standard version. To get Windows Media Center you need to use the Add Features To Windows app but there are no product keys for Media Center available yet and the Purchase wizard fails. It looks like Microsoft have not switched this feature on yet.

So if you want to use Windows 8 for DVD playback or Media Center use you are going to have to wait until Microsoft puts Media Center keys on MSDN or makes them available to buy. I know some people have upgraded Windows 7 and found Media Center had been removed after performing the upgrade.

 

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3 thoughts on “Don’t upgrade your HTPC to Windows 8 just yet”
  1. Thank you Ian for the PSA. I sure hope we get this resolved soon, as I was a bit trigger happy and already installed WIN 8 Pro, now I have no DVR…

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