Good news if you own a Sony PCV-RZ4x, PCV-RZ5x or VGC-RA series Media Center 2004 PC! Sony has announced that they will be offering an upgrade to Media Center Edition 2005 for $9.99. This is a time limited offer, so if you wish to take advantage of it, be sure to get in before May 31, 2005.

http://esupport.sony.com/info/winxpmceoffer.html

Version 1.01.3 of my Media Center Configuration Reset tool is now available for download. This is essentially my 1.02 version of the program with the ‘backup recording schedule’ feature turned off so that I could put out a version which would support Media Center 2005 with Rollup 1 installed. Once I’ve been able to test 1.02 a bit more it will be up for download. http://mvps.org/marksxp/MediaCenter/util/reset.php

NOTE:  Release Candidate 2 of Service Pack 2 is still Beta software, and may cause unforeseen problems on your system.  This shouldn't be installed on a system which you cannot afford to reinstall. The final version should be with us Summer 2004.

In terms of Media Center this will update any previous non beta version of Windows XP Media Center 2002 or 2004 to build 5.1.2600.2149. This is mainly a bug fix/performance update rather than adding new features.

Windows XP Service Pack 2 Release Candidate 2 (Full Network Installer): 
http://download.microsoft.com/download/C/1/6/C169BA60-E2D6-4C5F-B4F2-23DA024C9FA8/xpSP2.exe

Service Pack 2 RC2 Release Notes:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/deploy/relsprc2.mspx