Media Center pack is available for free?

[slothy]

no keys here yet also

[mcewinter]

Yeah, no keys here. I tried a couple different email accounts.

Edit: I just received a key that I had requested yesterday.

[TheOsburnFamil]

Link to get WMC Free: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/wind ... ture-packs

Put in your email and wait for the free key-- then add the WMC feature. Easy.

[Moderator note: topic merged; please search before posting]

[big_al5]

I bought Windows 8 PRO at Staples and put in the email, I waited three hours and checked spam folder; NO KEY? any ideas?
Thanks in advance.

Big Al

[slothy]

got mine emailed about 5 hours after i submitted it

[slothy]

mine finally came, everything up and running. minus blu ray playback

[barnabas1969]

I got a version of Win 8 Pro today.. I'm holding off a bit on installing it. I'll wait until there are solid drivers in place for all the hardware. It makes upgrading a much more gratifying experience. Plus I want to see what others on here have to say good/bad about it for MC use.

newfiend~

Curt,

It may be a good idea to make a system image of your Win7 system, install the upgrade (and activate the free Media Center key), then make another system image. Then, you can restore the first image (Win7) and keep the 2nd one (Win8 with MCE) in your pocket for some day in the future when you might like to upgrade.

[richard1980]

There is a big drawback to that solution though: If you restore the W8 image, you'll lose all DRM recordings made since the time the image was created (although the DRM recordings made prior to the W8 image being created should be fine). Just something to keep in mind.

[foxwood]

Good point - as long as you have your $39.99 Win8 Pro key (which shouldn't expire on January 31st), you might better of just paying for the $9.99 Media Center Pack when the time comes, if you aren't going to make the move before January 31st.

[TheOsburnFamil]

I'm confused. Why are people paying $9.99 for MediaCenter when you get it for free simply by asking for it?

[foxwood]

I'm confused. Why are people paying $9.99 for MediaCenter when you get it for free simply by asking for it?

You can get a key for free that will expire if you don't use it by January 31st - after that it'll be $9.99.

The small print at the bottom of the page where you apply for your free activation key says:

Offer valid from October 26, 2012, until January 31, 2013, and is limited to one product key per email address. ..... Your product key must be activated no later than January 31, 2013.

[Diverge]

I picked up a copy too. Installed it on my desktop to play around with. Got like 4 WMC keys for it... only took a day or so to get the emails w/ the keys. There are a couple ways to disable the new UI, so it doesn't start up on boot, but will come up with the windows key. WMC in win 8 doesn't have the option to startup at boot, but you can at the short cut to the startup folder and it works. But kinda slow. WMC starts up like 20 seconds after the desktop is up.

Heres the one I used: http://www.wesnext.com/login-directly-t ... -metro-ui/
For me it actually took the 3rd boot (2 or 3) boots before metro stopped starting up... some other people reported this in the comments on that programs page.

So if you wanted to try this on your HTPC you can at least get it to boot into WMC using the above.

edit: using the task scheduler to start WMC at logon works better - no more 20-30 second lag.

[TheOsburnFamil]

I'm confused. Why are people paying $9.99 for MediaCenter when you get it for free simply by asking for it?

You can get a key for free that will expire if you don't use it by January 31st - after that it'll be $9.99.

The small print at the bottom of the page where you apply for your free activation key says:

Offer valid from October 26, 2012, until January 31, 2013, and is limited to one product key per email address. ..... Your product key must be activated no later than January 31, 2013.

Ahh.. I missed the part about them needing to have been activated by then.

So-- for test, since I got about 5 keys now (I registered for one for each email my family has so all the kids may get it activated too). I decided to try to see if the same WMC key works on different Win8Pro activated machines-- sure enough it does.

SOOO I think I'll be building up a Win8Pro VM and add the WMC feature with each of the keys I have so they appear activated.

[foxwood]

I just received a key that I requested yesterday afternoon. Of course Amazon hasn't even shipped the copy of WIndows 8 that I pre-ordered!