I don't need media center it's the OS that came with the new machine. I need a stable XP until such time as I feel confident in stripping Vista to the bones. I hate OS's with bells and whistles. Tell me mor eabout 7 RC1. Should I have a version of XP pro but it won't do a rescue and I have been trying to avoid a format to preserve my mistake of not having a partition to save my data. My HM backup alone is over 18gig