Limited Time Offer: Windows 8 Pro Users Can Get Media Center For Free

Quote from rutgersfan : everyone should try XBMC...best htpc media "player" I've ever used. My friend told me about it, and it blew me away. free, too.

maybe for you but there is no native support for CableCards, so WMC plus Shark007 is the best media player in my mind. plays MKV's, DVD, VOB, AVI, all on a low powered AMD.

Quote from xRidley : a bargain, getting a standard feature of Win7 for FREE*. even better you get to use the worst OS since ME with it!

haters be hatin'.

**The offer is valid from October 26, 2012, until January 31, 2013, according to Microsoft, and is limited to one product key per email address. You qualify for this promotion if your PC is running Windows 8 Pro. Limited to five licenses per customer per promotion. (Thanks Travfar) Credit to Paul Thurrott and his website [winsupersite.com]

Product Key is not the same as a license?

Does this mean if you get the one Key you can install it on 5 machines that you own? Or do I need 5 keys (and 5 email addresses)?

Thanks for any clarification.

Quote from Surge123 : **The offer is valid from October 26, 2012, until January 31, 2013, according to Microsoft, and is limited to one product key per email address. You qualify for this promotion if your PC is running Windows 8 Pro. Limited to five licenses per customer per promotion. (Thanks Travfar) Credit to Paul Thurrott and his website [winsupersite.com] Product Key is not the same as a license? Does this mean if you get the one Key you can install it on 5 machines that you own? Or do I need 5 keys (and 5 email addresses)? Thanks for any clarification.

Also would like to know

Quote from relaymy : I want my Start button back!!!

Install the free program Pokki for Windows 8 - brings the Start Button back. Just found it today and it's perfect. Also puts the shutdown options, My Computer, CP, etc, right back where they should be in the Start Button. It's really well designed.

Quote from OneSlickDeal : Dont understand why windows 8 gets so much hate... It's windows 7 with a new UI.... people are just retarded and anti change

Here let me move the steering wheel of your car to the right side. You didn't ask for it. It doesn't really change anything in itself. And, you'll be as annoyed as hell until you get use to it.

I'm sure you'd accept that with a smile.

Quote from eryeal : Because of exactly things like this - take Media Center. Always came with Windows. Now you have to pay for it.

Quote from xRidley : a bargain, getting a standard feature of Win7 for FREE*. even better you get to use the worst OS since ME with it!

You always paid for it. Microsoft pays Dolby and others on a per-user basis for the codecs and other licenses. Microsoft has seen how high the adoption rate is for Apple's iterations of OSX, and how much trouble they have with getting people to upgrade. One of the biggest factors, they believe, is the cost difference ($29 for OSX, ~$80 for Windows), so they cut the cost in half. The fact is, they could include it in 8, but then an upgrade would cost $50. So 95% of users would have to pay $10 more (that Microsoft doesn't even see) for a product that 5% of people use.


Now, you can argue about Metro and whether the whole upgrade is worth $40, but that's a debate that occurs with every OS at upgrade time. I personally won't be upgrading right away, as Windows 7 is perfectly fine for me. But you can't knock Microsoft's pricing: it's $40 for a completely new UI, runtime, and the ability to upgrade from as far back as XP. If you think this upgrade is unreasonably expensive, then you'll probably just never upgrade again.

Quote from OneSlickDeal : Uumm... you guys realize that they lowered the price of windows 8 right? Instead of factoring in the cost for WMC and having everyone pay for it, why not make it cheaper for those that don't need it, and charge those that want it, with the total price still less than windows 7...

Finally, some sense.

Quote from EK100 : Here let me move the steering wheel of your car to the right side.

Cool. That's exactly where it should be

Quote from xRidley : a bargain, getting a standard feature of Win7 for FREE*. even better you get to use the worst OS since ME with it!

It's always amusing to find unfounded comments on SD.


Although ME was a flop, the OS represented a quantum leap in design and versatility Alas, the hardware industry decided NOT to keep pace with the processing needs of Microsoft's OS.


None the less, it led to the most stable OS in the history of Windows, 2000. For those of us who have followed Win8 closely, it is very clear it provides better compatibility, driver support and versatility since the inception of Windows.


To make the OS function across platforms, they kept all the good things of Win7 and made media center an option since the new version is targeted toward the mobile users. This way, the people who care about media center can just download it for free and once you have it, its yours. Others probably just don't care about it.


It's easy to criticize, and to be so critical of an OS which hasn't even launched reveals a basic lack of respect for others. At any rate, it certainly doesn't help anyone here.

Hoping this still work AFTER I get a PC over BF or Christmas...

Did anyone get their code via email yet? I signed up but got no email. Yes, I checked my spam box.

Quote from bjsguess : I love WMC. I have 3 HTPC's around my house. I use it with MediaBrowser and absolutely love it. That said, I represent a tiny minority of users. I've yet to have a friend or family member use Media Center. They ALL use Windows Media Player or other software to handle their music and movie playing. For those that need WMC this really sucks (except we have the deal now to jump on). For the other 99% of Windows users this is a total and complete non-issue. They don't know what WMC is and they certainly won't miss it.

It's noteworthy to mention that without WMC, Windows Media Player will lack codecs to play DVDs. That said, such users can move on to VLC or such if they desire.

Quote from xRidley : No such thing as "passing it on", more like they didn't want the (tiny) licensing costs eating up some margins. I hear this dumb excuse whenever a company rips out features.

I think you're wrong. For some reason $20 is stuck in my head as the rough cost for every copy of Win7's licensing fees specifically for WMC functionality. I think it's mostly to Dolby and Cablelabs.

Regardless of the number, it's not like we're talking about pennies here. There are actual costs associated with WMC that Microsoft has to pay, and complaining like "margin" is a bad word is silly. It's a company - they're supposed to make money. They DID lower the cost of Win 8 compared to Win 7, it makes sense to remove features that weren't used widely to keep their margins in tact.

I think this freebie is an attempt to give Win8 adoption more momentum and get the small set of WMC users an incentive to upgrade now, rather than wait and linger to decide upgrading later. Makes sense to me.

Not going to be an early adopter, went to the upgrade assistant and there's just too many incompatibility.

Secure Boot isn't compatible with your PC
Your PC's firmware doesn't support Secure Boot so you won't be able to use it in Windows 8.

DAEMON Tools Lite
DT Soft Ltd
Not compatible

Dell WLAN and Bluetooth Client Installation
Dell Inc.
Go to the app website for help (led me to a generic website with no drivers)

Intel(R) USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller Driver
Intel Corporation
Not compatible

ArcSoft TotalMedia Extreme
ArcSoft
Go to the app website for help (damn thing wants me to upgrade to a newer version for $$$!)

Going to wait a few months til Dell and some software to get their shit together and search for alternative if needed.