Should I upgrade my Windows 7 running Windows Media Center to Windows 8?

Forums › Home Theatre (including HTPC and EPG Collector) › Should I upgrade my Windows 7 running Windows Media Center to Windows 8?

Regs

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Snowflake

#111197 27-Oct-2012 01:07

short answer, no. stick with windows 7.

New Features in MCE: none
Fixed bugs in MCE: none
New bugs in MCE: yes
Removed features in MCE: yes
Native blu-ray support in MCE/Win8: no

MCE is a paid add-on to Windows 8 PRO only (although is supposedly free for next couple of months)

Only XBOX extenders work with win8

3rd party apps may not work - guide tools, metadata tools etc

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#707295 27-Oct-2012 08:28

I have a perfectly good HTPC running Windows 7 Media Center. It's been working for years now and except for the usual monthly security updates, a few MCE specific hotfixes and video drivers I have not modified it in any way.

Don't touch it if it's working! No reason to install Windows 8 on a purpose-specific PC that is working.

Also, it's a shame Microsoft decided that entertainment is Xbox and slowly killing Media Center.

B1GGLZ

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#707304 27-Oct-2012 08:50

I ran Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant on my PC and it came up with 7 incompatabilities.
The major ones being lack of Zone Alarm Firewall and DVD/Blu Ray support.
I'm staying with Windows 7 Pro.

CokemonZ

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#707328 27-Oct-2012 09:38

What new bugs! What removed features! This was going to be this weekends project as it doubles as media centre and server.

freitasm

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#707330 27-Oct-2012 09:40

If your HTPC boots into Media Center I don't see why moving to Windows 8 now would make a difference. As I said I will just keep mine running. I tend not to touch the HTPC in the lounge, since it's the only tuner/player/receiver we use...

B1GGLZ

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#707390 27-Oct-2012 11:34

freitasm: If your HTPC boots into Media Center I don't see why moving to Windows 8 now would make a difference. As I said I will just keep mine running. I tend not to touch the HTPC in the lounge, since it's the only tuner/player/receiver we use...

From what I've read so far Windows 8 doesn't support MCE. It's certainly not included in the Pro upgrade. MCE will be available soon as a purchaseable add-on. So I suspect if you have Win 7 and using MCE in a HTPC chances are it won't work with Win 8 til you purchase the not yet available add-on.

CokemonZ

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#707403 27-Oct-2012 12:03

I really like the idea of storage spaces. I think it will make managing backups a lot easier.

I got the free mce key you can apply for with windows pro at the moment.

freitasm

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#707405 27-Oct-2012 12:05

B1GGLZ: From what I've read so far Windows 8 doesn't support MCE. It's certainly not included in the Pro upgrade. MCE will be available soon as a purchaseable add-on. So I suspect if you have Win 7 and using MCE in a HTPC chances are it won't work with Win 8 til you purchase the not yet available add-on.

You can request a FREE Media Center Pack key for the next couple of months. It takes something between 12 and 24 hours to receive the email with the key.

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B1GGLZ

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#707498 27-Oct-2012 15:42

freitasm:
You can request a FREE Media Center Pack key for the next couple of months. It takes something between 12 and 24 hours to receive the email with the key.

Thanks. That's worth knowing. Maybe I will upgrade when they sort out Zone Alarm.

freitasm

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#707535 27-Oct-2012 17:32

Get the key now anyway because it won't last.

Regs

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Snowflake

#707638 27-Oct-2012 21:47

CokemonZ: What new bugs! What removed features! This was going to be this weekends project as it doubles as media centre and server.

one thing missing is the ability to boot straight into MCE. also, the older Linksys, HP and dlink extenders supposedly don't work and there are 3rd party apps that no longer work (but the EPG Collector software did work fine). you can also no longer run MCE on any version of win8 other than PRO.

bugs, seems there are quite a few issues with different graphics cards/drivers, issues with xbox extenders performing poorly, or freezing

things like storage spaces, hyper-v etc would be great to have, but if you rely on MCE as your primary set top box then the risks are rather large in upgrading.

if you want to try out win8, then set up a dual-boot and see how it goes, but don't throw away your win7 install until you are completely happy.

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CokemonZ

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#707652 27-Oct-2012 22:10

Yeah, I think might try that plan.
I treat my media centre as a server, it's kept in the closet, and the xboxs are used as extenders, so booting into MCe doesn't worry me.

I do have concern about reliability - WAF is the most important thing here ;)

Blanch

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#710753 1-Nov-2012 23:02

I’ve got my HTPC dual-booting Win7 and Win8 trail with WMC, if your using a Kinect to control your HTPC/ Desktop Win8 would be great otherwise I’d stick with Win7

Nety

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#710893 2-Nov-2012 10:53

Ah so they have added support but I am guessing only for the "PC" connect not the xbox connect? I did think that could be kinda cool although not sure how good it would be in practice and I don't see it being worth jumping to W8 for.

Media centre PC - Case Silverstone LC16M with 2 X 80mm AcoustiFan DustPROOF, MOBO Gigabyte MA785GT-UD3H, CPU AMD X2 240 under volted, RAM 4 Gig DDR3 1033, HDD 120Gig System/512Gig data, Tuners 2 X Hauppauge HVR-3000, 1 X HVR-2200, Video Palit GT 220, Sound Realtek 886A HD (onboard), Optical LiteOn DH-401S Blue-ray using TotalMedia Theatre Power Corsair VX Series, 450W ATX PSU OS Windows 7 x64

phrunt

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Master Geek

#714892 9-Nov-2012 20:05

I installed windows 8 on my media center, its worked flawlessly apart from the tv3 issues but I was having that with win7 mce also (occasionally freezing on the image for a few seconds then catching up like a lag problem) it only happens on tv3.

It's a lot faster than win7 mce, i can't see any features missing. Everything is great with it. It's true you can't boot to mce, but I installed classic shell (google for windows classic shell) and it puts the win7 start menu back on windows 8, its freeware open source and works a treat and once its installed I was able to make mce start on bootup. I used MCE Standby tool to take care of that for me.

I prefer it over win7 mce mainly because of its speed especially from bootup, i can power my machine off and it boots to mce faster than my win7 mce machine came out of standby and coming out of standby on it is near instant.

I just had win8 pro and used the free mce upgrade offer mentioned above to get the mce key.

I think its worth upgrading to win8 but i dont recommend doing an upgrade install, i did that and it wouldnt let me record, said there was no free space so I did a clean install and it came right.

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Snowflake

#714989 9-Nov-2012 23:35

@phrunt: are you using any xbox extenders?

(i'm also having problems with TV3. seems i'm not alone...)

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