I would say it's OK to run Media Center, but I haven't tried it. You are going to have to rim your Start Up items and services so Media Center doesn't become a CPU & RAM hog.

i have xp home and it has worked fine

Media center is supposed to be pretty nifty

XP home is the cripled version of XP pro, it lacks some networking features (security mostly), as well as multi processor support. XP Media center is basicall XP Pro, plus media application like an enchanced version of Window Media Player, and DVD player, tv recorder support etc.

Every one of them will run scratch live, there is really no diffrence, media center might load some more stuff on top and use up more ram for base OS. Either way you can disable the same stuff in XP home, pro or media center to make things faster, using the optimizing guides, and its really all about killing processes you don't need. I use Windows 2003 Standard Edition on my laptop, with everything turned off, its actually a newer kernal than XP, and has faster wakeup time from hybernation, other than that i can't tell the diffrence in Scratch live.

that's what i figured...

I'll be using either profiles or a dual boot... so it shouldn't matter...

just wondering if i should opt for the media center edition since it's a free upgrade.

BTW... i haven't purchased the dell yet... only cuz i found an HP L2000 with twice the HD (80gb), twice the memory (1gb), and smaller screen but with brightview for 1000.

No waiting for rebates (like the dell) and nearly all the upgrades i wanted to do.

And I found it on ebay for 750ish... but I'm weary about ebay now since I got burned for 700 2 weeks ago tryin to get a laptop off ebay. (bastard-guy)

If you are planning on playing in a club, don't under-estimate the benefits of a bigger screen. Nothing looks more stupid than a notebook DJ hunched over a tiny screen, squinting at unreadable characters.

What up ummagawd! CAS in this piece!

I would have to agree with DJ HSL... Get a bigger screen.. its better for your back and beer googles!