chris in columbus said:
Can I turn off Media Center and end up with Windows XP?
Also, I'm using this system as a Digital Audio Workstation, and would like
to be able to use my hardware's ASIO drivers, but am unable to do so. The
support people believe that something else is forcing the system to use
the
WDM drivers for the hardware, making it impossible to switch to the ASIO
drivers. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks! chris
Some audio interfaces say explicitly that Windows Media Center (despite its
name) is not supported, though XP Home and PRO are. Tablet and Server
editions are also not typically supported.
DigiDesign products (like pro tools - mBox versions) fall into this
category. Presonus Fireboxes have similar problems. Lots of problems with
Cubase and Sonar as well, in the software category.
I don't know exactly what the problem is, aside from a lot of overhead for
background tasks, but you might - or might not - find a detailed explanation
at DigiDesign, and that explanation may well apply to your situation.
While you can turn off some of the MM extensions, you won't wind up with XP
Pro, and it seems you aren't likely to trick the interface drivers into
thinking it's anything other than WMC and behaving poorly.
I've seen a number of threads from people trying to make these things work
with the partial assistance DigiDesign will offer (essentially a FAQ) but
they usually wind up with a partially-functional install, not the result
they wanted - and they spent a lot of time at this rather than recording.
You might be better off (and up and running sooner) looking for other
hardware to run the DAW on. As an example, I have been buying (for another
purpose) some used HP d530 sff machines, P4 - 2.6 gHz, 512 meg ram, 40 gig
drives, USB 2 and legit XP Pro license, for about CDN$250. These are more
than adequate for many personal recording tasks - and they are small and
quiet. Most laptops these days are more than capable, too.
HTH
-pk
