Using Vista Business as a Media Center for my collection of movies

Question：I have a white box PC that I built w/4GB Ram and 3.5 TB of storage.  I want to use this as a Media Center for my movie collection and play the movies directly from the HDDs.  My question is:  Can I do this with Vista Business and what other hardware/software do I need to enable hook up to my tv for playback.  Thank you in advance!

Vach48

Answer 1：Hello Vach48,

Thank you for posting.  The only versions of Vista the have Media Center are Home Premium and Ultimate.  All versions do have Windows Media Player 11.  You can compare the versions here at this link http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/compare-editions/default.aspx .

As for connecting to your TV, it really depends on the input connections of your TV.  If you have a VGA or DVI input on you TV, then the connection to PC is fairly simple.  If you want to use HDMI, then your graphics/video card needs to have HDMI connections also.

Please let me know if this has helped you.

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Zack


Answer 2：

Zack:

Thanks for your response to my question!  Sorry I am getting back to you so late.  So if I understand you correctly as long as my tv has a vga or dvi input connection I can connect via either of those connections, right?  Also, another question...I set one of my drives with the movies as a shared drive, however, every time I try to connect via another computer on my network it asks me for a password and I have tried the passwords I normally use but none of them are working, I have also tried various combinations of the user name (//computer name/username) and none of those allow access either.  What am I missing here?!

Thanks in advance

Pete Kovacevic

Answer 3：Hello Vach48,

Thank you for returning.  Yes in regards to the inputs on TV.  As for shared folder, you should be able to access it by using your login for the computer that has Vista and the actual shared folder.  Another option is to change the way files are shared in the Network and Sharing Center to not use password protected sharing ( the easier of the two). 

Please let me know if this helps you.

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Zack