Windows Fiji - Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008 Leaked to Torrent Sites

Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008, labeled as codename Windows Fiji, throughout the development process, has been released to manufacturing in mid-July 2008. Designed as an upgrade for the Windows Media Center component of the Home Premium and Ultimate SKUs of Windows Vista, Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008 has been confirmed by Microsoft as an OEM-exclusive release. This means that Microsoft has no intention of serving the first Windows Media Center upgrade to end users running the Home Premium and Ultimate editions of the latest Windows client. However, despite this, Windows Fiji has been leaked to torrent websites and is now available for download from peer-to-peer networks.

Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008 was initially planned as the first major update of WMC, shipped by default with Vista Home Premium and Ultimate. In development since 2007, Windows Fiji ended up as a release available only to Microsoft's original equipment partners offering hardware products running Windows Media Center. Ben Reed, WMC product marketing manager, explained that Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008 would be served only to OEMs because of geography-specific technical and hardware requirements.

Still, outside of Microsoft's control, both the 32-bit and the 64-bit versions of Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008 are available for download via torrent websites, but also through additional download sources that are in no way associated with the Redmond company. Of course that obtaining the TV Pack 2008 release from any party outside of Microsoft or its OEM partners that have licensed distribution rights to Windows Fiji is illegal. At the same time, running Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008 without a license is also illegal. In this context I will not provide you with a download link.

The installation process of Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008 is specifically tailored to OEMs, and is not designed for end users. The gold version of TV Pack 2008 has to be installed on a clean installation of Vista SP1 Home Premium or Ultimate, on which Windows Media Center was never launched. The PlayReady PC Runtime has to be deployed on top of Windows Fiji, followed by KB951685 (The video playback application stops responding when you watch video or Live TV on a Windows Vista-based computer) and KB950754 (Noticeable problems occur in the video when you use the DirectSound renderer on Windows Vista). After the integration of Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008, Windows Media Center will evolve to Build 6.1.1000.18273.