Those who switch from Windows XP to Windows 7 find, in the collection of programs, an object called Windows Media Center, which is also present in Windows Vista. This is not present in Windows 7 Starter and Home Basic but is present in all other versions of Windows 7.
By trying the Windows Media Center, you realize that you have a program in front of you, made in a very modern way, beautiful to look at, functional that actually looks like the interface of a hyper-technological TV.
Probably, after playing around with it, you might ask yourself, " What is the Windows Media Center for when I use the Windows Media Player to listen to music and watch movies">
The question is entirely legitimate because in fact the Windows Media Center is much heavier than the Windows Media Player, much slower to load although nice to look at as a graphic.
Windows Media Center only serves to do two things:
1) If you connect your PC to the television, you would have a nice interface to operate, if you want, with the remote control to edit and browse images, listen to music, watch videos and movies, without ever going through the Windows folders.
2) if you have a digital TV receiver card attached to your computer, it is an excellent free program to watch TV on your PC.
If you don't plan to use Windows Media Center to do these two things, then you might as well remove and uninstall it, which, in Windows 7, you can easily do (I don't think in Vista).
Much less is it necessary to have such a large program if the computer or laptop is used to work, to write or to surf the Internet.
To eliminate Windows Media Center you can act in two ways, both completely reversible in case you want to restore it one day.
1) The easiest way to get rid of Windows Media Center is to uninstall it from your computer with Windows 7 by going, from Control Panel, to the Programs and Features utility.
This method is similar to that used to remove Internet Explorer from Windows.
From the window that lists all the programs, you have to go to the top left and press where it says " Activating and deactivating Windows features ".
In the window that appears, scroll through the various sections until you find that of the multimedia features, expand it with the + and deselect Windows Media Center by raising the flag.
Once confirmed to disable WMC, press OK and wait for the uninstallation of the Windows multimedia program.
When the computer restarts, Windows Media Center is no longer there but, if you want to restore it, just go back to the list of Windows functions and put the cross again.
2) Alternatively, you can also only disable access to the Windows Media Center from local security policies which however is not available in the Home versions of Windows 7.
Go to Start -> Run -> type the command gpedit.msc .
In the screen that opens, you have to navigate the following path: User configuration \ Administrative templates \ Windows components \ Windows Media Center .
Double-click N to not allow Windows Media Center to run, enable this policy, click OK and close the security settings.
Now if a user tries to start WMC, he gets a ban message.
My advice is, if you never use it, to remove it also because in this way you gain disk space and the system is leaner and less prone to errors.
