Just finished buying the Win8 Pro upgrade from Amazon. Just finished ordering my dippy Media center Product Key so both will be here in time. Am now buying used Dell laptops for testing it, ones which users who installed Win8, said worked well. Will try one and then the next. Of course, since your DVD -- needed to install Win8, lol -- is disabled after installation, I'll have to do the first test on the one with the DVD, then clone back the prior drive. What insanity.

HOW TO MAKE THE CUSTOMER HATE YOU: destroy the mechanism of installation immediately after installation, so in case the power goes out or the installation is glitchy, he can't start his computer again. They must be drinking Jim Jones' Koolaid in Redmond...

Worse: this was the only article I could find which told me what the Media Center in Win8 would DO. MS doesn't have ANYTHING on what it DOES in its site for purchasing. You can't even purchase the Pro pack on its own page! Now, thanks to this article, I see the schizoid formerly-Metro now just nameless Start Screen can't read the codecs for the Media player, but those codecs only work in the Media Center?Which I MUST install before January 31, lest even the product key fail?

Thanks to pradichaya's comment above, at least I know what to do IF IF IF I get the dang key and (as is likely) it will fail. Hope I remember where I bookmarked this page with her comment.

WHY am I even trying Win8? Masochism. Gotta be, masochism.