Originally posted by: SUOrangeman
To further clarify Sideswipe001's message, MCE2005 is really an instance of Windows XP with a heavily embedded Media Center capability. Chances are that Microsoft *could* separate and sell the MCE stuff as an add-on to any existing XP install. However, chances are that they won't do so, as it may cut into sales of the current MCE.
-SUO
Actually, the reasons for its current status as a separate release of XP are complicated.
From what I have been told, originally it was just going to be a separate product, an "add-on" to Windows like Media Player. But as the Media Center team proceeded in its development, they had to change a few parts of the OS to get A/V quality up to "consumer electronics" standards. Additionally, they started finding out that 3rd party driver quality was absolutely, positively awful. They worked months and months with (mostly video card and video encoder) vendors to bring quality up to consumer-like levels for specific devices.
Once these device drivers were ready, they created the Media Center vendor program, where Microsoft would work with a few specific vendors to release Media Center PCs as end-to-end products. These vendors would have to include only hardware that was on Microsoft's approved hardware list, which included only the specific configurations they had lab-tested. Then Microsoft would hand them this custom edition of Windows to install, dubbed "Windows XP Media Center Edition". That is what early MCE vendors like HP shipped to customers.
Now, with MCE 2005 (the 3rd edition of Media Center), Microsoft is much more confident in 3rd party driver support. So now MS has released MCE to ALL system builders (OEMs) who wish to package their own Media Center PCs. MCE 2005 is still a separate version of Windows XP, however, because the Media Center features require OS-level changes that are not a part of mainstream XP builds.
Once the next version of Windows comes out, the required OS-level features that forced Media Center to fork off its own release may exist in the main Windows OS. That would mean that subsequent versions of Media Center may be able to go back to the original goal of a standalone distribution that installs on top of the OS.
Does that make sense?