(Review) – In our Vista 5231 review, we pointed out the worthlessness of the Windows Media Center Edition. In fact, we only had one word to describe the usability of the application: "Terrible".

According to our review, "It’s so confusing; it would render even the computing enthusiasts frustrated. There is a new scrolling menu, thanks to the abundance of options that you don’t need. Compare this to the Front Row launched by Apple a few days ago at its famous "One More Thing...." press conference. Now that is simplicity, and the previous Windows MCE beat Apple to that. Of course someone at Microsoft was not delighted in making things easier and hired the best brains to figure out the most complicated way of listening to and watching music/videos/movies. We must say the developers accomplished just that by disguising everything under the hood of more choices. If you have ever driven an M5, you know that more choices are not always better, and forced choices are the worst."

Once you have gotten over the initial shock, you calm down and decide to give it a spin (after a lot of "easy customizations" using "wizards"). Although the interface is responsive and very smooth, it’s a painstaking task to get to the options of your choice. The menus, sub-menus and sub-sub-menus are just as cumbersome as the rest of the interface."

Click here to read our initial take on Windows Media Center Edition in Windows Vista 5231.