Business edition lacks media center

  • Thread starter Thread starter Puppy Breath
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Puppy Breath

To me it seems the only reason to have Media Center would be if you're going
to connect the PC to a TV and you want to use a remote control (rather than
mouse/keyboard) to control media. Media Center also lets you record TV if
you have the appropriate hardware (like a PVR card). Other than that, I
can't think of any great reasons to have Media Center since you can do
everything through Media Player and Photo Gallery.
 
The laptop I want to buy (SONY VGN-SZ4MN) comes with Vista Business, but I
see that lacks the media center bits of the cheaper Home Premium edition.
Is there any way I can get those - without having to pay large sums for the
Ultimate edition.
Is 'media center' worth having?

Thanks.
 
Hi Clive
Why would you want media center on a business machine? Media Player 11 is
included however. Otherwise sorry you will need to upgrade to Vista
Ultimate.

Best regards
Stuart
 
Thanks for the reply, Stewart.
Why do you refer to this machine as a business machine? I am not sure of the
distinction.
I will use it in a sort of home-business capacity, I suppose, giving
presentations, but also running home applications, watching (and projecting)
DVDs and maybe playing an occasional game.

Regards,
Clive
 
Hi Clive

Sorry for the misunderstanding, if you predominantly require a machine for
running MS Office apps, playing DVD's etc, you may be better looking for a
machine with Home Premium as this may be more suitable for your
requirements.

Vista Business is designed in principal as a package for people who require
most of the facilities that they already have on a corporate server and
consequently a laptop for use on the road or at home in connection with
their business is where Vista Business ideally falls.

I hope this helps a little bit for you.

Best Regards
Stuart
 
Thanks Stuart.
I thought I'd found the machine I wanted. I guess I'll have to keep looking
then.
I'm still not sure what I would be losing with Business edition. I currently
run XP home, so it is not as if I am used to MCE. Does it make it easier to
show photos/video on my TV, and burn DVDs? Does Business lack these things?

Regards,
Clive
 
Vista Business is the pendant to XP Professional, which also does not
include any Media-Toys..

If you want professional features together with media-stuff than buy
Ultimate, it has all.

Vista Edition Roundup :

Basic = XP Home
Premium = XP Media Center and XP Tablet Edition in one
Business = XP Professional

Enterprise = Mix between half a Server 2003 together with XP Pro

SJ / germany
 
Premium = XP Media Center and XP Tablet Edition in one
Business = XP Professional
Click to expand...

In more detail. Premium you can not add to a Domain (if you need that) and
you can not connect via remote desktop(RDC) but, you can do both in Business
but, you lose Media Center.
Premium = XP Media Center and XP Tablet Edition in one
Click to expand...

Nah, not really, No Domain access (could setup during insall, so it was
there) and NO remote desktop. Both features that XP Media Center have but,
M$ is charging another $100+ to get those features (Ultimate)
 
Nah, not really, No Domain access (could setup during insall, so it was
there) and NO remote desktop. Both features that XP Media Center have but,
M$ is charging another $100+ to get those features (Ultimate)
Click to expand...

XP Media Center has no 'Join-a-Domain' Feature.

It is possible with some workarounds ( install XP Media Disk1 as XP
Professional, and add the MediaCenter afterwards with a 'hack' ) , but it is
disabled.

The whitepaper from Microsoft explain that this has to do with MCEs Feature
of connecting to Media Extenders / X-Boxes etc, so they had to cut away
other connection-features to make sure the "Amusing" connections are fully
working as single scenario.

SJ / germany
 
The Media Player that comes with either the Business Edition or the
Enterprise edition of Vista lacks a DVD Decoder. Hence, the business
variants of Vista do not have the same media playing capabilities as the Home
Premium or Ultimate editions.

Even in business situations, the capability to play DVDs is useful. Product
presentations are appearing with greater frequency on DVDs. It is a pain to
hunt down a DVD player, when theoretically my laptop should have been able to
do it, but can't, since it lacks a decoder. It was a giant step backwards,
as far as media playing capabilities, going from XP Pro on my system, which
included DVD playback capabilities, to XP Enterprise, which does not. It is
a slap in the face to say 'you have to pay extra for that'.

Aside from sales presentations, anyone who thinks that DVD playback is not
useful to business people has never been stuck at Chicago O'Hare for hours
due to ATC or weather delays, sick of reviewing documents and spreadsheets,
just wishing to watch that movie in the gift bag, but can't because the OS
that the IT department installed does not support DVD playback, and never
will because it is not part of their 'supported configuration that uses Vista
Enterprise.'
 
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