XP SP3 or Vista Ultimate for Media Portal?

[Beechus]

Hey ppz,

I'm using RC1 of mediaportal with windows vista ultimate...

I've got mediaportal setup exactly how i want it- but my problem with mediaportal is it's little shortcomings which make it unusable...

Using an MCE remote to control MP causes windows media center to launch- closing media center results in MP being impossible to bring back without a ctrl alt del job. Mostly things like this...

This has go tme wondering, is the problem not mediaportal, but windows vista? If i re-isntall my PC with windows xp SP3, will I have a better (and possibly faster) viewing experiance?

Any input will be greatley appreciated- I love media portal- but these problems needs to be resolved.... if XP is the way, thats fine with me

[Mew]

Hi Beechus

I have run MediaPortal with both Windows XP (SP2) and Vista. In my experience I have found Vista to be slightly better than XP. It seems more stable and power management seems more reliable. In XP I had a problem that if I enabled hardware acceleration for my NVidia 8500GT, TV would always stutter very slightly after the HTPC woke up from hibernation. I have never had this problem in Vista. NVidia have now finally improved their Vista drivers to be nearly as configurable under Vista as they were under XP. You also have the advantage of being able to use hardware accelerated EVR and that VIsta is actively marketed, supported and developed by Microsoft whereas they are desperately trying (unsuccessfully at the moment) to kill XP off (or at least let it whither and die).

Of course peoples' experiences of Vista depend on how well their hardware runs on Vista. I was lucky that I built my HTPC from scratch in April 2007 and tried to make sure that all hardware I bought would work in Vista (as well as MediaPortal).

I disabled the green button on my remote from activating Media Center by following the instructions here:

GeneralUserGuides/GreenButton - MediaPortal Wiki Documentation

Hope this helps.

Mew

[Paranoid Delusion]

Geez, keep forgetting we have that in the wiki, keep using my external link, now changed

[guytpetj]

On the other hand, I have all exept one of my pc/htpc's running on XP. One runs on Vista.
XP SP2 or SP3 gives me very stable HTCP's running MediaPortal, with one of them running 24/7.
I'm away from home 3 weeks of the month, and the wife and kids have not been able to make my 24/7 machine crash for over a year now.

On my Vista machine; well, I still regret the day that I bought Vista.

[MdFolter]

In XP you have to disable all Ehome related services, like tv service. After that mediacenter will not respond to your remote and mediaportal stays alive!

[doornjoostje]

Originally Posted by MdFolter

In XP you have to disable all Ehome related services, like tv service. After that mediacenter will not respond to your remote and mediaportal stays alive!

This is for windows MCE 2005, not for the normal XP.

[MdFolter]

Originally Posted by Beechus.
Using an MCE remote to control MP causes windows media center to launch- closing media center results in MP being impossible to bring back without a ctrl alt del job. Mostly things like this...

So I figured out Beechus had MCE2005. Of course for normal XP it doesn't apply

[doornjoostje]

Originally Posted by MdFolter

So I figured out Beechus had MCE2005. Of course for normal XP it doesn't apply

Yes , I know u know and i also do, but if you haven't uses MCE 2005 before, it not that obvious.

[pmangold]

HI there,
I just solved the same problem, I could control MP with the MCE remote using he arrows and chanel buttons and stuff, but as soon as I clicked one of he special key to start the live TV or similar, the Windows MCE started up, blocking my MP.

I use VISTA ultimate myself and after hours of surfing found that the solution is rather simple:
Disable the 3 or 4 Windows Media Center services in the Services dialog and restart your PC. ....

Here are some alternative solutions listed as well.
Good luck, it worked for me...

[Marcusb]

Originally Posted by guytpetj

On the other hand, I have all exept one of my pc/htpc's running on XP. One runs on Vista.
...

On my Vista machine; well, I still regret the day that I bought Vista.

I'm the same.
I installed Vista on my main HTPC because I had heard the video handling was better.
I have all sorts of nuisance issues in Vista as a result.
Now I just want to roll back to XP but I invested so much time to trying to get Vista running as well as XP did that it seems a waste to roll back.
And I have seen no improvements in Vista over XP but a number of functions I used to love now don't work in Vista.