Three crashes and $39 later...

Eric Walker · **Voice Talent** Joined: 20 Nov 2007 Posts: 4

Hello,
Not a fun day one this end. I did a bit of research and called Sweetwater Sound with some preferences for an audio interface for my home studio. Instead of my original picks I let the sales guy talk me into the Digidesign MBox 2 mini with Protools LE. I bought about $1200 worth of stuff in total and tried to set it all up today.
Well long story short, Windows XP Media Center Edition (my computer) is not compatible with Protools LE. (The salesman never asked what edition of XP I had.) Of course it took me hours of technical support w/Sweetwater, three crashes (from doing as they told me), before they finally asked me what edition of Windows XP I had. After a $39 call with Dell I finally got Windows repaired and my computer back up. Sweetwater was surprisingly clinical about the whole thing, but did offer to exchange and cover postage.
So here's my question. Can anyone recommend a decent audio interface and editing program (other than protools) that will work with Windows XP Media Center Edition? I really don't trust the advice of the Sweetwater folks at this point. Normally I'm pretty resilient but for some reason this has been an especially discouraging day. Thanks for your help.

Eric Walker

Thomas C. Gass · **Voice Talent** Joined: 11 May 2006 Posts: 179

Eric

keep your smile up! I've had a PC with Windows XP Media Center and noticed as well, that this is NOT Windows XP - but after searching the internet I found out that you can without spending any more money change your setup to a working and genuine Windows XP Pro... I can't find the link to it right now and have to search again... hopefully talk to you soon (or somebody else who knows the trick...)

Thomas

David Oxford · **Voice Talent** Joined: 09 Feb 2007 Posts: 505

Eric:

Don't feel too badly about it all. Windows Media Center edition (outside of Windows ME) has to be the absolute WORST version of an operating system that Puke-ro-soft has ever dumped on the market. It is completely incompatible with any/all hardware devices that have anything to do with audio or video - and collides brilliantly with much of the software for same.

I, too, was told that I could go in and do a massive revision of all the settings which would basically turn it into a real, working version of XP....but after spending about 6 hours the first day going through all that mess, I still was never able to get all the problems solved.

Thankfully, I had picked up the piece of trash (it was brand new in the box) at a rent-to-own place because I wanted to try it out on the cheap before going to a real computer place to plonk down the cash - and thankfully I did! I took it back after struggling for about a week.

David