Aufero: XP vs Vista

I got a question the other day and up to that point I hadn't spent a second thinking about it. The question was: "Why not Windows XP?"

I was a bit stumped at first since I never considered writing Aufero for XP. Yeah, so why not? It's an easy answer: It just not fun to develop Media Center applications for Windows XP. I tried writing a few applications way back then and I always got stuck when I got to the point of User Interface because it always turned out so hideous that I got uninspired and just went back to do whatever I was doing before.

Now, after the initial (rather steep?) learning curve of managed code + MCML in VMC I must conclude that Microsoft did a good choice here. Kudos to the development team of Media Center.

This will eventually mean that there will be heaps of applications for VMC. A few years down the line we might see Microsoft being charged with being anti-competitive (probably here in EU) due to the fact that they ship Media Center with their OS. Isn't it a lovely world. :)