If your PC is running Windows Vista Home Premium or Windows Vista Ultimate, you have a great feature set you may not even know about: Windows Media Center.

Windows Media Center can turn your PC from a “plain vanilla” computer into something pretty powerful and impressive: the hub of your entertainment system.  Surprised?  Well (if you ask nicely), I’ll tell you more.

Use Windows Media Center to browse your music collection by cover art or year, organize photos and create albums and jazz up custom slide shows with music.  If you’re a sports fan, you’ll definitely want to check out your favorite team’s scores and stats on SportsLounge (U.S. and Canada only).

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And if you like movies and TV, you’ll enjoy Internet TV Beta. This new feature allows you to play free streaming video content on demand, choosing from more than 100 hours of TV entertainment, music concerts, movie trailers, news, and sports content from MSN Video.

Are you a film buff?  If so, you’re in luck.  Windows Media Center, you can watch movies on DVD and stream or download movies from a growing list of content providers through Online Media-an innovative portal that helps you find movies over the Internet.  If you want a quick glimpse of all the movies you’ve recorded or the movies coming up on TV, check out the Movies Guide. You can see movie jackets, search for films by actor, director, genre, or title, and read descriptions and reviews of the films.

TV features are some of the most exciting in Windows Media Center.  You can watch, pause, and rewind live TV shows in standard and high definition (HDTV available only in the U.S.)1. Schedule recordings with the Electronic Programming Guide and find shows in the Windows Media Center Recorded TV library using picture thumbnails from the actual programs. You can also view live TV through Picture-in-Picture or as a background while performing other activities in Windows Media Center.

Want to save what you’ve recorded?  No problem.  Go ahead and burn your favorite shows to DVD.  Windows Media Center will even create a simple DVD menu, which you can navigate using your DVD remote.

Right about now, you’re probably thinking “Hey, this sounds pretty good - but I’ll bet set-up is complicated.”  Not so!  A TV tuner is all you need to start enjoying live TV on your Windows Vista Home Premium or Windows Vista Ultimate PC.2  Just plug your TV antenna, cable, or the video output from your satellite set-top box into your TV tuner, open Windows Media Center, and follow the appropriate set-up instructions.  To find out what else you need to perform specific functions in Windows Media Center, take a look at the handy chart here.

Some Windows Media Center users like to stream their digital media throughout the house.  If that appeals to you, Extenders for Windows Media Center are just the ticket.  And here’s a tip:  If you have an Xbox 360, you already have a first-rate extender available.

1 Enjoying live and recorded HD content may require additional equipment, including but not limited to an HD compatible receiver, tuner, set-top box, and TV or other display.

2 Windows Media Center supports as many as two NTSC Standard tuners and two ATSC HD TV tuners, for a maximum of four TV tuners in a Windows Media Center PC but not limited to an HD compatible receiver, tuner, set-top box, and TV or other display.

This weekend I completed the roll-out of my new HP MediaSmart Server running Windows Home Server.  I ordered the HP MediaSmart Server EX470. I originally had Windows Home Server running on my Dell Dimension E520 but decommissioned it when I created my “Ultimate” PC. I really wanted to try out the experience the average consumer will have in purchasing a Windows Home Server and setting it up in their home. The HP MediaSmart Server seemed like the perfect choice in checking out the Windows Home Server experience.

The HP MediaSmart Server EX470 has the following specs:

• Processor - AMD 1.8GHz 64-bit Sempron
• Memory - 512MB DDR
• Interfaces - 4 USB 2.0 Ports, 1 eSATA Port
• Storage - 1 500GB SATA 7200 RPM

The EX470 model of the HP MediaSmart Server comes with a single 500GB harddrive, however the EX475 model comes with 1TB (two 500GB SATA harddrives). I don’t need 1TB just yet so decided to go with the EX470. The EX470 comes with 3 expansion slots to add my own harddrives at a later date which is really nice.

Windows Home Server gives a great deal of added benefit to Windows Vista users. First and foremost, it allows you to make sure your PC is completely backed up and that all your PCs on your home network are backed up. With a Windows Home Server restore disc, you can easily restore a complete PC backup from your Windows Home Server via your home network. Windows Home Server also makes sure all your PCs are protected by as well - alerting you if a PC becomes unprotected our has out-of-date antivirus/spyware definitions. And Windows Home Server takes advantage of Media Sharing abilities built in to Windows Vista for photos, music and videos. I can move recorded TV shows onto my Windows Home Server where I can access them on any PC on my home network. Same goes for my photos.

There are 3 reasons why Windows Home Server is essential for my home network:

1. A centralized place for data storage with quick access from any PC on my.
2. Quick and easy remote access to PCs and data.
3. Complete PC backups with full and quick restore capability.

I do a lot of traveling and when I’m away from my home office, I cannot begin to explain how amazing it is to be able to login to my Windows Home Server to access important data - or files I accidentally left behind. I can even use Remote Desktop to login to my PCs at home remotely.

In setting up the HP MediaSmart Server, I was curious how the experience would be in setting up a “headless” server from a consumer standpoint. There’s no monitor connection on the HP MediaSmart Server - only way to access it is remotely. I was incredibly impressed on how easy it was.

Essentially, the HP MediaSmart Server comes with an install disc you use on any of your client PCs on your home network. The install disc will install some HP software for the server as well as launch a wizard that takes the user through a step-by-step process in setting up Windows Home Server. The wizard lets you setup a Windows Home Server Password, check for updates, name your Windows Home Server, and install the Windows Home Server Connector.

After the wizard completed, I had a fully functional and accessible Windows Home Server. Took me only a matter of a few minutes to set up. Very nice.

Coming up, I’ve got some more experiences to share with Windows Home Server and Windows Vista.

Here are list of some tools that I’ve tried that would help your productivity in Windows Vista go a bit higher, with these tools everything would be a bit easier plus with some cool enhancements. I’ve been reading the post and PC World, and I got interested and tried these softwares.

Vista Battery Saver

This program automatically deactivates Windows Aero and the Windows Sidebar when your laptop runs on battery power and may extend battery life for me I haven’t noticed any changes or battery extension but will delve in deeper for testing.
Download Vista Battery Saver
ISO Recorder

ISO Recorder lets you burn .iso files to CD or DVD, but won’t create images of audio or video CDs. This program will let you create .iso files and burn them to either CD or DVD. It nicely fits itself onto Windows Explorer. Right-click an .iso file, and then follow the instructions to burn it to CD or DVD.
Download ISO Recorder

Windows Mail Attachment Extractor for Vista

Ah yes, for Windows Mail users this program helps out the task of saving and managing e-mail attachments. You can even ask the program to extract pictures, and save the pictures to a specific directory every time. or do it automatically.
Download Windows Mail Attachment Extractor for Vista

Window Clippings

This program is yes of course, for capturing screen shots in Vista best news is that it’s free or you can have the premium for $10 for the advanced options like capturing a mouse pointer, snagging specific areas of the desktop, or use a timer for taking screen shots.
Download Window Clippings

Feeds Plus

Fans of the RSS blog reader built into Internet Explorer 7 need this program. Read all of your feeds from a single location, instead of trying to look for your favorite feeds on some place. Save time if you have dozen of feeds to read and so little time. This program works with Internet Explorer in Windows XP as well as with the version built into Windows Vista.
Download Feeds Plus

• Make Windows XP Boot Faster - Top Tweaks Oldies but goodies
  In case you never bothered tweaking your Windows XP to boot faster and have been living with sluggish performance, now is your chance to change it.I have listed the top tweaks that help Windows XP get the bootup speed you want. [Learn]