Windows Media Center fans can finally breathe again. After seemingly endless will they / won’t they speculation Steven Sinofsky, the President of the Windows Division has confirmed in a blog post that Media Center will return for one more go ’round in Windows 8 . There isn’t a word on any possible changes, only that the corporate has “work to do” about the quality and compatibility of add-ins. Wondering why it hasn’t been in some pre-release builds? Between the opportunity of multiple SKUs (no details until towards release, however it looks like you will be searching for an Ultimate pack or something similar again to get everything) and straightforward engineering decisions as features are added and removed that’s just how it is. Another factor is that WMC isn’t exactly mass market, as he cites stats indicating only 6 percent of Windows 7 users launched the app in July, with over 1/2 those sessions lasting lower than a few minutes. Meanwhile, IE apparently pops up on 88 percent of Windows 7 desktops. Check the blog post for his full statement, plus a bit discussion in regards to the new Metro style and ribbon mechanism.
[Thanks, Joe]
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