Chris Lanier's Blog

Not a chance!

I'll wait at least two years before upgrade. The current system is buggy enough. I can't imagine a brand new system will be less so.

i cant wait to switch to VMCE!! bring it on

I probably will, but without a concurrent sessions workaround, it's going to be a serious PITA since my MCE is now my main & only PC. Would I pay $400 for it, no. but for the price MVPs get it for, sure. It's not that it's not a good update, but for what I use it for, few of the new features will go to use by me.

Oh, this is to say, only if they fix Transcode360...if not, i'll stay with 2005 forever :-D

I'll be upgrading primarily to take advantage of the new pictures section of MCE.

Until Hauppauge pull their finger out and produce working drivers for the Nova-T 500 the answer has to be no sadly.

It depends on the cost of OEM-only cable-card machines.  I'm dying for CC, but will be moving to Tivo if I can't get a cable-card PC on the cheap.

I want to switch to MEC from Tivo - but its going to depend on the hardware. I have no desire to build my own system and will only switch if the CableCard systems are quiet with a nice form factor.

I have to I want CableCard support.

I absolutely will switch... in fact I already have. Starting with Vista RC1, the MCE worked better for me than fully patched MCE 2005 on the same exact hardware. Going from picture/sound sync issues, Closed Captioning going out of sync and never catching up when rewinding and few other annoyances... I am definitely putting Ultimate on when it RTMs! It extends great to my XBOX 360 too.

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I say the more people that make the switch, the sooner all the major bugs will get worked out.  

Plus, the ability to write plug-ins using Windows Presentation Foundation rather than HTML will make the "more programs" feature explode with great content.

I am using MCE 2005 in my living room. No way I will switch to Vista. I put RC1 for a moment, did not pass the wife and kids factors. They use almost exclusively the DVR functionality.

When you have a lot of shows (at my place it always seem to be around 50) -- the horizontal scrolling is so counter intuitive. The picture preview of the shows is more confusing than helping (when you have 15 shows of Hanna Montana -- it does not help you to understand which show you already saw).

The menu items are sometimes so small (on my regular CRT TV), that it is hard to see. And on.

The UI is a big/HUGE step backward.

I am disapointed that Vista MCE doesn't really add any meat and potato like new features.  The UI improvements look great, I love the new music library but I'd say VMCE is more like MCE 2005.5.  Give me picture in picure, split screen, the ability to listen to music and watch TV at the same time, split screen with TV on one side and whatever else I want on the other.  It's a computer dammit, make it do MORE than what a Tivo coudl dream of.

That said I will likely be (trying) to move to it because of cablecard support.  But the ugly question is, will I be required to buy a "certified" computer to get that?  I'm a DIY'r and this is REALLY a sad day if we can't buy cablecards ourselves.  I haven't seen a pre-built MCE box yet that would satisfy me... I'm huge on value to go with good featurs and so far DIY is the only way I've been able to accomplish that.

I will definitely be switching. The new UI is excellent! As to when that happens is all reliant on CableCard availability. When I can get my hands on CableCard or a PC that CableCard certified I'll be switching. To echo the above commenter, I'm a DIY kinda guy and I'd REALLY like to be able to build my own Vista MCE box WITH CableCard(s). But I'll settle for a pre-built model if I can get exactly what I want and need.

Also, someone above mentioned they thought the new UI was a step backwards. This is all about having a "regular CRT TV", the UI is designed for 16:9 HD so it's going to be less less than ideal on Standard Def 4:3 TV...

As soon as the first model comes out with Dual Cable Card support. I am in.

It will have to work as solidly as MCE2005.  As of build 5744 it's still not there yet.  On the one hand it's looking really good considering I've only been able to truly use it for the last couple months.  Driver support is good for the hardware I have and the UI improvements are nice (though it could still use some polish and/or consistency).  The built-in MPEG decoder is nice but quality pales compared to nvidia's.  There just seem to be too many little issues that just make it annoying to use and embarassing to showcase at this point.  I do hope that a couple more months of development will take care of all this.

Won't upgrade to Vista until it is well bedded in...Xbox 360 is my next purchase.

Vista offers very little to users outside N.America. I won't be upgrading until the dust settles.

I wont be rushing to Vista MC.

NO MHEG support for UK/Europe/Australia interactive services,

NO digital text support because of this

NO Satellite DVB support not even free to air

NO Record whats in the buffer if program already started

NO Internet Radio preset application built in

NO simple controls like Crossfade on/off

Bugs Galore in Media Player 11 (like 0 for track numbers even if u blank them out)

NO native MSN Messenger support

NO DAB Radio support

NO extra categories in EPG

NO design change implemented to read over the air EPG (more accurate than web version)

NO NOW/NEXT banners for UK DVB-T unlike broadcasters STB's that have had this for years

NO folder support for organising Recorded TV

NO improved DVD burning features - still naff Sonic engine.

NO basic DVD menu selection for burnt discs

NO basic commercial editing (simple In/Out)

In short Vista MCE is just a reskin ! Waste of time, currently less reliable than MCE 2005 !

I think theyve lost the battle now frankly. Media Portal will get ahead or Apple. 2009 is too late for these features Microsoft, get real or lose out.

From what I've seen playing around with RC1, I don't think so.  The small number of improvements were FAR outweighed by the massive UI step backwards.  The colors are more difficult to see in the UI, and it is much more cluttered.

However, if Cable Cards are supported DIY, then I might eventually have to switch.  Additionally, if the final release version fixes the UI sufficiently then the other features might become worth having.  I guess I'll have to reserve final judgement until RTM, or perhaps even until the retail versions next year.

Probably not. I bought MCE2005 the day it went retail and struggled with getting it to work. Now that it is, I can't imagine messing it up. The ONLY reason I would is for CableCard but I'm not buying a Dell just to get it. Besides, I'm waiting to see what 'other' Vista features affect my computability BEFORE I upgrade ANY of my systems.

For me to upgrade, I need to replace several extenders in the home so vista will be running on a testing setup but will not be the main testing setup.

Of course directv support would instantly change my mind.

I will take a wait and see approach. I have a XBox 360 that works as an extender on a TV, but still have the old extender on another one, which is not supported by Vista.

So, unless I find really cheap extender that works for Vista, I won't be switching since it works fine as it is.

Being located in Denmark, Europe I can only agree with "UK User" too many options that are not included for European users. If you dont do anything about this you will end up second. Media Portal is far ahead of you in terms of solutions that European users are asking for. Also as long as you dont have an extender that is quiet and by that I dont mean going down to 38Db but way below 28Db your solution is just not good enough. So no I will not join the Vista team.. Sorry guys.

I have been trying to get Vista MCE running on my AMD Athlon machines and have found nothing but bugs. I would really love to upgrade as what I have seen in screenshots and demo movies is pretty nice. The other issue is that I have two MCE machines each with two Hauppauge Nova-T PCI cards in them and I believe that hauppauge have no interest in providing backward support for these cards... not to mention that whilst the current drivers may work in 32Bit mode, they definately do not work in 64Bit mode which would be one reason for m to upgrade to Vista. So I will probably upgrade when it is released, but I will definately be chucking my Hauppauge cards in the bin and going for a supplier that does support 64bit. Maybe the FusionHD Dual Tuner cards, a couple of those in each of my machine would be pretty nice.

sorry, but no!

there is a long list of "to do's" wich was not touched.

For europeen users this list is again longer! NO native DVB S/C support, no mixed sources, database- Crashes...

There are no news for us in Vista Media Center. Why to spend money for this?  

Eventually I suppose... when I am forced to because of no further support for MCE 2005. I will upgrade my desktop to Vista and new office gladly and use that for my work - however as per my 'production' MCE box in the living room... Why upgrade and break something that basically works.

There is no incentive to move, it is likely to be many months before plugins I continually use daily will be available for Vista, like DCut, Transcode360 etc. So until my subset of plugins or workable alternatives are available - forget it.

Finally, as others have stated - there is absolutely nothing new in VMCE... No new features, several existing bugs / idysynchrosis still exit - nothing of value or incentive to transition. All this hype about cablecard is laughable outside of USA - Yep great if you live there, good on ya, go for it - but not a single new thing of interest to UK / Europe / Australian users... One could question the market outside of USA is as big if not bigger than just the USA potential - so many countries, so many people disapointed in what they are getting....

Its been said all before about our disapointment - all we are getting is a bit of eye candy with hmmm... varying acceptance of that look and feel - its still not friendly enough, and does not work as well on 4*4 as opposed to 16*9

Yep - like many others outside the USA... Will seriously consider 'upgrading' to Media Portal - but once gone down that path, there will be no turning back to MCE...

Yes...VMCE and X360 is a charm...running RC2 and not bad at all..

for those who are worried about transcode360..follow the link below.."According to sources in the "Microsoft Vista Extender Team" Transcode 360 should be fully supported in it's current incarnation under Vista RTM.

For those who do not know what Transcode 360 is:

   "Transcode 360 enables the playback of unsupported video over Xbox 360 and Media Center Extender devices. This software is designed to run on Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005.

   Transcode 360 is completely free for non-commercial use, donations are always appreciated. If you like Transcode 360 and find it useful please make a small donation to sponsor further development of this project. ""

http://happybeggar.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=19&Itemid=2

There's no way I'm switching and here's why:  Not ONE single must-have feature that I wanted has been incorporated into the new media center.  Sure, it looks pretty and slicker than ever, but that's not enough.  Also, it won't work with my XBOX 1 media centers, and I have 3 of these units in my house.  To top it off, there has been no word on new media centers that will work with Vista Media Center, besides the 360 of course.  So, the question shouldn't be "will you switch," but should be "why would you switch?"  And, I don't think anyone has a good answer for that...  

I'll probably wait a few years for the next version, which may actually have Zune integration and other features that make it worth upgrading to.

Just wanted to add, I wish Microsoft would really put importance on the Media Center platform and Windows Media Player.  Microsoft could dominate the media landscape if they really cared about these products as much as they care about XBOX 360.

All this being said, I would instantly upgrade if there was a Directv solution similar to the dual-cable card deal.  Until then, I'll be waiting for new extenders, improved stability, and feature upgrades.  

NO. As long as there is no support for DVD streaming to extenders (other than the MCE PC itself), I will not think of it. Infact, I will go with any solution in the market that does this...

Hell no! I've played with vista RC2 to know it won't pass the wifey test. and way too many DRM issues.

Yes, I will go to Vista as soon as possible. I want to get HDTV back and refuse to use the Scientific Atlanta box that Time Warner provides.  Also, the new TiVo, while nice, is still not as functional as the media center.

I will be buying a top-of-the-line media center, where I can also suck-up all of my CDs and DVDs (yes, 3rd party tool).  

After runnning into problems with recording two, while trying to watch one, with my current underpowered media center, even my wife is now in favor this this :-)

Is there any great new features in Vista?

In MCE, the DVR part is great and I like to use Messenger from the MCE interface. Oh! they removed messenger with Vista.

Guess I won't upgrade...

Doubtful... Vista still doesn't support my ATI Radeon 9600 AIW card as of RC2, and ATI's RC1 driver makes Vista unstable. Still no AIW tuner support that is currently working in XP MCE 2K5...

hell yeah it's so much easier and better than xp mce. and just the one issue to raise up about the £200 price tag

Yep, think I will actually.

I've just installed RC2 a couple days ago, and it's stable and faster then MCE2005 on my system. Had it installed & running in under an hour with all codec's etc. Took me at least 4 hours to get MCE 2005 with all drivers to work.

I only have a driver issue left, nVidia hasn't released a driver that allows me to switch to PAL, so I can't use my TV's PIP function (TV can't split PAL/NTSC). And maybe that's just me, but why is there no better TV display driver, the default Vista one only allows for 29 or 30 kHz.

But I assume this should all go away when nVidia have the proper driver out.

Two things are on my wish list though:

- Change order of Vista MCE options.

- Don't display 'Burn CD/DVD' if the system doesn't have a burner. Seems to me that should be a simple check on first run.

Cheers,

Joffrey

As per the post earlier about transcode360 - it was reported today (digg amongst others) - that it was reported at some show in Europe that M$ will release firmware upgrade within 2 months for xvid /divx playback on xbox360.... Now that would be great - simpler than transcode for sure... It would be great if someone was actually to confirm this - because somehow I aint believing it as yet. http://www.360-hq.com/article-1126-thread-1-0.html

There is no Must-Have feature and the system requirements are just way too high. So in other words nope, and I get all my OS's for free via MSDN...

My main PC on the other hand? As soon as

IMHO lack of cablecard access and DRM will kill the HTPC market before it gets started. The cable and Sat industry has done everything in its power to ignore the DIY crowd and HTPC owners. They are more than happy to rent you their DVR for $9 a month but because of thier stance on DIY, HTPC's will remain an rare oddity vs going mainstream.

The situation with the extenders has convinced me to "crossgrade" rather than go to Vista. If I'm going to replace my equipment, I'll go with Apple's product since it'll just work.

I can buy a handful of "ITV" boxes at $299.99 a piece, or buy Vista @ $400, plus v2 Extenders at likely the same price as the ITVs.

Yes, I'll switch asap. I've got a RAID 5 array that was expanded over the 2TB limit and at present am unable to access it.

$800 and a TiVo S3 seems like the safe play for me and my wife right now.  

I'm running RC1 at home.  I like the UI over MCE2005, but that's about it.  I am disappointed in the lack of new (and killer) features in Vista MCE.  All of those missing features in the post above?  I miss them too.  I know tons of TiVo users that would switch over if they had the chance.  For now, they are satisfied with their hacked XBOX's and hacked TiVos.  They aren't switching.

I wish someone would make a list of all these reason people's aren't going to switch to Vista, and then make one killer HTPC app.

Not until logitech comes with 64bit driver for my wheel...

No way... The desktop machine is more likely to get a Vista upgrade than the MCE machine at the moment - especially as Vista looks great as an everyday OS.

Unfortunately, there are no "must have" features in Vista MCE for the European market and only CableCard support, that I can see, for the US market.

The "Now and Next" mini guide is nice but certainly not worth the upgrade price and as for the complicated UI - well... what can one say about this? Yep - sure it looks pretty, and overall, I love the look of the new UI but the horizontial navigation is horrid. As such, I think Microsoft have just killed MCE's place in the living room. MCE2005 is so intuitive, so simple to use... MCE2005 even gets wife approval and the kids love it.

The Vista release could have been such a great opportunity for Microsoft to improve on this, yet it seems that they have tried to make MCE more usable as a 2" foot client when used as a regular "windowed" appplication rather than implement some of the much needed features and concentrate on the 10" UI that has been MCE's bread and butter. If I want to use a 2" application I'll use Media Player!

David Fleischman, one of the eHome team developers, quoted back in August that "I've also been 'dark' working on some new features for MCE. We still have a few surprises up our sleeves" - well... I really wish they would announce what they are as RC2 is out and there's nothing pushing me down the upgrade route yet. Softsled is probably the only thing that would force me to upgrade at present so let's keep our fingers crossed that this is on the horizon ;-)

I may eventually switch to vista after microsoft stops support and forces me to switch, but I cannot justify telling my family to move over to vista right now, just so daddy can play some mcml games.

Lets get straight down to business, my family uses MCE 2005 for its DVR capabilities. Our current machine is a DIY project that is built to handle recording of over 20+ shows a week.

The question I ask to you Mr. Lanier (please this is a legitimate question) "How does switching to vista improve over MCE 2005 when it comes to DVR?"

From my (admitidly biased) view it doesnt improve that much over what we have now. We still cannot hit record and record things that are already in the tv buffer. The DVR-MS file format still eats up Gigs of hard drive space. Not enough filters for TV shows, I'd love to be able to tag tv shows such as Monday Night Football, CSI as "Dads TV" and be able to filter them quickly for playback when I get around to watching them.

Another small example, with Vista there is still no picture-in-picture support. I mean really now come on, Media Center is running on a PC there is no shortage of horsepower, with multiple tuners MCE should have the capability to split screen as many tuners as the machine has.

I could keep writing missing features for hours, but it wouldnt serve any purpose other than helping me vent... All in all it seems that the media center team spent so much time improving the user experience that they lost sight on innovating the way people use media center! And thats probably the biggest reason why I'm not compelled to make the switch.

Chris that sort of pisses me off that someone like you (meant in a good way) would come out and say that all you can see of benefit is for CableCARD for the US. I think you have just convinced me to switch from MCE to another product, because I was already feeling that Microsoft couldn't care less for markets outside of the US, other than lip service versions, and now the only benefit of upgrading (that you can see) would be for US users who want CableCARD support. Sucks Extremely Much.

And I understand you have pointed out in your last comment 'for DVR use', but it is not like we are using MCE for anything else... watching DVDS on TV? The free DVD player available at Argos could do that.

Chris - I am also very shocked that your bottom line is that Vista is not worth it.  This is for several reasons:

1. HDTV support - CableCard on Vista MCE is the only reasonable way to join the 21st century.  If for no other reason (in the US) this would mandate Vista MCE for anyone who wants to receive (other than attenna based) real HDTV on a device than is really functional.  The type of devices put out by Scientific Atlanta, et al are really not acceptable to people who are serious about DVRs.  For me devices like TiVo are just not adequate.

2. Security - If for no other reason alone, I would adopt Visa and thus MCE.  Microsoft has made a relatively secure operating system and I would adopt it for my entire home network (six systems) for that reason alone.

3. Anything new will come in Vista/MCE.  Whether is be better Xbox support, more extendors, other media type support or HD/DVD, how could you not go to Vista.

For me, it seems like that anyone who is even remotely serious about media capability would instantly adopt Vista.

yep.  I will, the day my movies 3.0 (native vista) is released.

I will, if I find a CableCARD-equipped system that is priced right.  I prefer the Vista

UI to XP/MCE 2005, so even though there isn't really anything new at all to be gained from Vista MC, I would still want to upgrade.

No.

It's averaging 1 blue screen every few hours. Simply not stable enough.

My advice is to wait for SP1.

Vista holds the promise that all of us media center fanatics have fantasized about for quite some time...HD and CableCard Support.  The day I can plug in my cable and use my computer to receive ALL if the information on the cable plant will be a fine one indeed.  For now I am using SageTV with a few of the Hauppuage extenders and am relatively happy (They work great, minus the HD support).  I am extremely tempted to run out and empty my wallet on brand new processors, memory, etc to support the upgrade to Vista, but the smarter, wiser consumer in me thinks that things will not go as planned or work as advertised. I will be waiting until the hardware support is available (ie..I can go and and buy a tuner with CableCard support!), and the software functionality is proven...

No way will I touch it until at least SP1. Maybe not even then, unless there are a lot of DX10 games I cant do without.  

This is just my standard proceedure for any windows OS.

I am looking around at some of the other offerings from the open source community, if they look to be more stable then MCE is out completely.  It seems every couple of patches new problems crop up that need fixing, the one Im fighting now is the occasional video stutter in live TV.  The only thing that changed was security patches... sigh...

Nope. Vista complete mess with MCE. No real improvement over 2005 unless u want cablecard in USA.

1. No Record Whats In the Buffer if program already started when you press RECORD

2. No Over The Air EPG if no broadband connected. Over the air EPG far more reliable and updated than the broadband one! (For UK freeview DVB-T)

3. No DVB-S (satellite) support in UK

4. No MHEG engine for digital teletext/interactive services in UK/Europe/Australia

5. No crossfade function ON/OFF - back to Media Player for that

6. Bugs in Media Player 11 with cover art being replaced (see Chris Lainers blog for loads of people complaning about this and program managers were told of this on betas!)

7. More Bugs with media Player 11 with track numbers shown as zero when they are blank instead of just not showing them.

8. No Internet Radio like webmedia

9. Yet more bugs in Media Player 11 when synchronising content to portable device. If library is 320mbps MP3 and set to convert library to 192K WMA and Mp11 loses fact that its synced before (ie WMP XML missing), bad code results in CONVERTING message for every track but when it goes to copy you get "Already On Device" now why cant the programmer do their job properly and put the "Is it already on device anyway" check at beginning ! grrrrrrrr!

10. No fix for wake from standby to update the EPG but the internet connection isnt available - pop up message stops machine going back into standby

11. No playlists for Videos

12. No MCE integrated Messenger Client (though romoured to be a separate download later)

13. Cover Art blown up too big and makes pictures look pixelated UNLIKE MCE 2005 which was just right.

14. No updated DVD authoring including picking basic menu templates within MCE itself

15. No web browser built into MCE itself just selected portal.

16. No ability to lock MCE so you cant exit to explorer without credentials (needed for living room type PC's)

17. No integrated Zune type music store.

18. No integration with free pop videos like zone.

19. No Xbox360 update to the XEX file to allow streaming of other codecs such as divx and quicktime

20. Media Player 11 STILL loses meta data like publisher when you rescan a folder or new user account scans library folder for first time. Not embedding data properly STILL.

21. Still cant fast forward and rewind a CD in MCE

22. Still no basic editor in MCE to edit commercials out

23. Still no meta data editor for video files and music files in MCE.

24. Still no signal strength indicator for DVB-T

In a word, NO !

I live in the Netherlands, Vista offers NO nett new functionality of MCE 2005.

You want me to upgrade to Vista?  You want me to stop running Media Portal and switch back to MCE?  Then listen to everyone..

1) DVB is the .eu standard for digital!  DVB-S and DVB-C support needs to be added

2) Fix the EPG, it sucks for people living in the .eu.  Its incosistent and patchy at best

3) Did I already say DVB-S and DVB-C ?

4) When I press the record button 15 minutes into a program and the first 15 minutes are already in the buffer, what on earth makes you think I want to delete the first 15 minutes?  Add it to the recorded content!

5) Did I already say DVB-S and DVB-C ?

6) Scanning for channels changes in the background causes issues with the channel listing (make an option to disable background channels)

7) Support Multiple audio stream PIDs

8) Support Teletext in DVB

9) errm support DVB-S and DVB-C

There are two main problems with my installation of Vista Media Center (over the existing shortcomings of Windows Media Center 2005):

1) There is virtually no DD/DTS pass-through support available from any of the major sound cards/VMC.

2) After about 20-25 minutes of watching an HDTV recording (using the firewire recording application), I start to get video judder.  In most cases it does not affect audio at all.  Not sure of the cause yet, but makes it pretty useless for everyday use.

I tried the beta version of Windows Vista and absolutely loved the new OS. The Media Center on Vista is great. I had to switch back to xp mce 2005 because of lack of drivers, but as soon as HP comes out with my printer driver and Epson with my scanner driver, I will switch rigt away. Directv hd cable box does not work very well with my media center 2005. I have issues with the guide, recording wrong channels.

Not soon!  On 12/31/2006 Vista lost my dual Tuners, and would not correct itself.  I spent a day going back to MCE 2005 (not an easy feat after entrusting your entire system to Vista - We will leave that nightmare trying to install a clean MCE 2005 on a drive that had Vista for another time)

Remote Record will not work on VIsta , according to MSFT tech support.

Im really not impressed AT ALL.

Im using Vista at the moment due to my persistance in attempting to get things working.

The interface in Vista is horrible.

Yes I think there are some small advancements in Vista.

The look of it (colours etc) is more pleasing to the eye.

The build in MPEG2 decoder is good to see.

And the ease of adding in extenders seems to be nicely done.

Mind you none of these  advancements are hardly leaps and bounds. I personally dont see any stability difference. My 05 system's (2) are Rock Solid, so anything less reliable that that will be noticed soon Im sure.

Unfortunately though the bad far outweight the good.

Not very useful interface, particularly if you have a large media collection. It just gets too daunting.

I have over 25,000 photos, 30,000 MP3's, 900 xvid files and over a TB of recorded TV. Navigating through large collections of media is nothing short of a nightmare.I dont care what anyone says in regards to the side pan, I dont think it works (16x9 or otherise). No matter how large your display. MCE05 was simple and easy, just as a PVR interface should be. IT would be nice if they could introduce a interface that was totaly customisable if the user required it. That way users could switch back to a similar interface to 05 if that was their preference.

The More info DELETE function has gone! I cant believe they did this. Now I cant delete a folder on the system when its empty. I have to dig out the keyboard. I mean... CMON guys, what was the thought behind that? Was that extra command weighing MCE down that much that it had to be removed?

Caller ID removed... WHY?

MSN Messenger Removed... WHY?

Play DVD moved to the TV + Movies menu... why?

Menu items combined... WHY?

More importantly, the collaberation of My Pictures and My Music together. Thats the WORST thing Ive seen. Now all my photos in my music folders are indexed and seen in my slideshows. Cmon guys... surely you can give us OPTIONS to turn these damn features on or off. Include them, fine... but done restrict us to using them the way you think suits the general audience. Listen to the users.. havent we been faithful enough and using the interface long enough that we should be considered when designing the next system?

Vista is 10 steps backwards in my opinion.. Its caused countless hours of pain attempting to get things back to the way 05 used to handle things. Maybe if you were a new MCE user, Vista would be fine. But its a migration nightmare. Especially with the Album Artwork covers. It just doesnt work like it did in 05.

Will I upgrade...? Well as I mentioned above, I ufortunately already have... however I will keep my dual boot system in place until the next edition if MCE is released as I just know its only a matter of time before I switch back to 05 for the rest of Vista's existance.

Lets just hope they listen to us next time around... I can only hope