Windows Media Center 2005 - My HTPC

Advantages: User Friendly, Easy to Use, Value for Money, Comprehensive Operating System.
Disadvantages: Poor Documentation, Titanic Struggle Installing Operating System

...I have a DVD player, CD Player, A/V Amplifier sitting in my front room all linked to my LCD TV and Sky Digi Box. They all work fine but it does take up quite a bit of room and I'd realistically like an HTPC set up to bring my multimedia module into one unit! Enter Windows Media Center 2005! My setup consists of a Silverstone LC16M Case which houses an Asus A8N-SLi Motherboard, Hauppage PVR 250, Maxtor Diamond Max 250GB Hard Drive, 1GB Crucial Dual Channel DDR Memory to name just the main core of my system. Contents of Windows Media Center 2005 Pack. You will be supplied with two CD's, a Setup Guide and a Product Key to be placed on your system. To make full use of Media Center it is recommended that you also purchase a Media Center Remote Control & Extender. Installation of Media Center 2005. Installation of most...

thehitman 21.11.2005 (22.11.2005) · Read review
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Review of Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 Complete package

Windows 7 overview

Advantages: Easy to use, Aesthetically pleasing, User friendly
Disadvantages: Not enough variation from vista, no desktop button

...Windows 7 Review With the recent release of the new Microsoft operating system windows 7 many people believe windows vista will be forgotten about with its constant security alerts and lack of user options. The new operating system has many new features which I will run through now. Firstly the new taskbar down at the bottom is a lot easier on the eye as it no longer has any text whatsoever, instead Microsoft have opted to use just the logo of the software the user currently has running. Another improvement to the taskbar is the ability to lock items to the task bar which is a replacement of the quick launch system in Vista, this simply means that you right click click on the logo of the software you want to lock and click ?pin to taskbar? this means that when the program isn?t open it still has an icon on the taskbar and can be...

joshsmit 10.11.2009 · Read review
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Review of Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium

Windows 7 - The Best OS Yet!

Advantages: Great new toolbar, excellent personalisation, overall brilliant design
Disadvantages: Really similar to Vista.

...the notification area and time/date (both of which have featured on all previous toolbars). In the far right corner of the toolbar is a small button which reveals the desktop when pressed. My favourite part of the toolbar is the way the programs are set out. As I mentioned earlier, programs can be pinned to the toolbar which allows you to quickly access them. When it's first installed, the programs pinned to the toolbar are Internet Explorer, Windows Explorer and Windows Media Player. I am a keen programmer with little use for Windows Media Player so I've removed it from the taskbar and replaced it with Visual Basic and Visual C++ as they are two of the programs I use most often. The programs appear only as icons (i.e. Internet Explorer only appears as the "e" icon and doesn't have any description of the open application). This means more items will...

tb240904 31.08.2009 (13.09.2009) · Read review
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Review of Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium

Windows 7 - it makes Vista look like a beta

Advantages: smooth, quick, easy to install and use, pretty to look at, simplified for the masses
Disadvantages: Vista should have been like this - Microsoft robbed us!

...! Its not all about looks though, there are quite a few new additions to improve your PC experience. The task bar has a new look and windows are popped together in bunches, hover your mouse cursor over it and see what windows are open. Windows media player is updated to a point where it automatically recognised where my music was stored (on another harddrive, not on C in ?My music? folder as you might expect) without me even telling it anything. You might well have seen some of the new features on the adverts. The best is probably dragging open windows to the edge of the screen, they will then ?snap? into place and allow you to have two screens side by side without the faffing around of changing the size and trying to align it all yourself. But there are many other simple features which are a pleasure to use. Very simple things like...

AgeUK 04.11.2009 · Read review
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Review of Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium

Windows 7: Is what Microsoft is saying really true?

Advantages: Runs really fast, Some very good features, any decent machine can run it.
Disadvantages: The Price. It looks like vista and it really is just a brush up on the old OS

...Windows 7 has been said by Microsoft as being much improved and everyone would be happy with the end result. But is it really better, below is my review of a few sections which I believe is most important and compare it to older versions. Speed: 9/10 Much faster than Vista. To compare with the Vista OS, on Vista it took around 30 secs to 45 secs to boot up and log me in. Now on Windows 7 it takes 20 - 30 secs to boot up. Shut down is also so much faster. Vista = 15 secs... Windows 7 = 5 secs..... So there is a huge improvement. Also when running programs or browsing the internet you feel like this Operating System is very smooth and just does what you want (most of the time) Program Compatablilty: 8/10 Most Programs that run on Vista will run on Windows 7 (32-bit) very well. Though (64-bit) has a few problems such as many...

dndewar1 28.10.2009 · Read review
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Review of Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium

Windows 7 - a great operating system.

Advantages: looks great, easy to use, nice new taskbar, high compatibility
Disadvantages: cost is still high

...I recently upgraded from Windows Vista Ultimate to Windows 7 Ultimate. I had not minded Windows Vista as much as other people; my computer has a 2.13GHz dual core processor and 4GB of RAM. Windows 7 doesn't actually seem to be any faster, but it has some better features and is overall easier to use. It took about 2 hours to upgrade, which isn't bad but it's not amazingly fast. It runs all of my programs that ran under Vista no problem, and some of my hardware is actually now supported that wasn't supported in Vista. I haven't found anything that doesn't work after upgrading. I still recommend that you run the "Windows 7 upgrade advisor" first just to make sure. The new taskbar looks a bit different, but don't be worried, you'll get used to it, and once you do you'll find out that it's a big improvement. Programs no longer have text, just...

ellisbodds 15.10.2009 · Read review
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Review of Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate

Windows media player review.

Advantages: Original with many brilliant features
Disadvantages: Can sometimes have it's problems such as not loading up quickly

...OK, just a brief piece of information you should know. This was installed on my computer when i first got it, we got someone in to do it for us. The whole computer and the windows software, that is. It proved to be very helpful and we have never experienced any problems with this media player so far unlike others i have tried out in the past. I hope that this review is to your liking and proves to be helpful. If there is anything i could improve on feel free to tell me. If you have any questions you would like to ask feel free to do so though i'm sure the majority of you already know a great deal about this program. How easy is it to use this program? Don't be fooled! this program is in fact VERY easy to use. Don't let others put you off by thinking it's just a plain boring program in comparison to all the others on the market out...

CarolynLouiseX 15.04.2004 · Read review
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Review of Microsoft - Windows Media Player

Windows Media Player 7

Advantages: Good sound output, extensive control over style and function, web integration, quite stable and doesn't cost a penny
Disadvantages: slow and a little cumbersome, large download

...In the face of competition from the likes of Winamp and Sonique, Microsoft release Windows Media Player 7, but is it good enough to stem the tide of desertion? Catchy name aside, it's actually pretty good, and certainly a great improvement on WMP6, which was outdated and lacked style. Media Player 7's style can be whatever you want it to be, because there's quite a large choice of designer skins downloadable from Microsoft's website. The standard player is cleanly designed, with well placed, stylised buttons on a brushed-metal stylee exterior. Unfortunately, the player itself is rather too large and cumbersome for the avergae 800x600 desktop, and could do with being slimmed down a little. Handily though, the standard version also comes with a "miniplayer" skin, which shrinks the box down to a managable corner-size. Unfortunately...

mg_45 31.12.2000 · Read review
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Review of Microsoft - Windows Media Player 7

The Demon Media Player

Advantages: free software, plays most formats
Disadvantages: microsoft, is a huge file to download

...With the advent of the Internet the whole world suddenly became connected to everywhere. A little after and before (most probably) media formats were developed for computers. These allowed things such as short movies and music to be viewed at home over the Internet with ease. Probably the most famous of these formats has been mp3, which has caused the music industry to re-think how it does business. Also mpeg (a format that allows video as well as sound) has become quire popular and you now get movie trailers over the Internet, this has also been used with the DVD Video format. Anyway enough of the brief introduction, I am going to talk about the Windows Media Player (version 7 or so?). With all of media content available to you on the Internet which media player do you choose? This is a good question, there are loads that you...

ia_young 31.01.2002 · Read review
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Review of Microsoft - Windows Media Player 7

virgin media

Advantages: TV till you drop and good internet.
Disadvantages: Poor customer services, poor prices,

...Virgin have gone down in my expectations and i am currently thinking of leaving them. When i first joined virgin media it was called telewest, i signed up to a large tv package and the internet at a cost of 40 pounds per month. This worked fine untill virgin media took over, Although they did bring better and more chanels to the table the prices went up and the customer service went down. When virgin took over they rang me to say i would be better off if i got the whole package which included xl tv, 20gb broadband and a phone line with free weekend calls as it would take my bill down to 35 pound a month, i also pay for disney cinemagic aswell so it would basically be taking 5 pound off my bill which i thought was fair enough. Since then the bill has went up and up and up! I still have the same package to which i had 4 years...

vikkiz 19.10.2009 (20.10.2009) · Read review
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Review of Virgin Media