Win7 vs. Vista Media Center: 6 month review & known outstanding bugs report

[VidaBox]

There are four main known "bugs" with Windows 7:

Major: - WMP12 Music Library Rebuilds

Everytime that a system is restarted after an update, going into the "Music Library" feature reactivates and forcibly scans the entire music library. In theory, it sounds like a good, new feature - except for the fact that the screen just flashes continually as new music is added, or sometimes appears "frozen," and the remote control has no effect. If you have tons of music, it can take upwards of 15 minutes to complete the scan, which is totally unacceptable by any standard.

This is the biggest, most annoying Win7 bug right now..
[Update 5/5/10: There is now a hotfix available - details here - but note that it does not really work well]
[Update 7/22/10: If a system is planned to be used for music storage/tagging, we CANNOT recommend using Win7 at this time]

Major: - WMP12 Music Library Database disappears; music no longer shows up.

Over time, the music library may disappear altogether. To repair, it requires a system reimage. This is a reliability issue.
[Update 10/7/10: If a system is planned to be used for music storage/tagging, we STILL CANNOT recommend using Win7 at this time]

Major: - "Focus" issues: Remote/keyboard commands entered in don't execute correctly sometimes.

With Win7, on some screens with popups or transitions - the cursor in the original screen is being controlled - not the top layer popup. On some transitions from Blu-ray back to Media Center, focus is lost and cannot be retained until media center interface is restarted.

Minor: - No "auto-popup" for DVD movie archiving
In Vista, there was an API function that allowed our programmers to detect a DVD being inserted into an extender, and then autolaunch a prompt asking if you wanted to archive the disc or just watch it. No such 'hook' exists in Win7 (it's been removed for whatever reason) - so a movie will just play (if nothing is currently playing), or, no pop-ups will appear prompting to copy (if there is something playing). Again, a minor inconvenence, but most of our customers seem to like the popup, so that they know what to do next.

Minor: - Slightly slower vs Vista:
After collecting 6 months' worth of data and user experience, we've found that Win7's interface seems to be a tad slower than Vista's interface in an apples-to-apples comparison. Not a showstopper, but a bit annoying sometimes.

These are the 4 'issues' that are present. Unfortunately, because alot of these things are exposed to us at VidaBox programmically, it's not within our power to fix them at this time.

Thus, knowing the issues, we recommend choosing Vista instead of Win7 at this time. We can still ship Windows 7 based system, but all customers who choose this option should be 100% aware of this before jumping ahead, since the whole idea of VidaBox is designed to be as stable and user-friendly as possible.

Update Jan 2012:
We've been using Vista for several years, and have eliminated all the bugs. All VidaBox systems still ship with Vista for greatest reliability and stability, but we can ship Win7 systems on specific request.

For clients who are interested in Win7 only, if one can live with these known issues , then yes, we can surely ship a system w. Win7. In the meantime, for the most stable, reliable experience, we recommend staying with Windows Vista in the short term.

When Win7 or above has been determined to be "production ready," we will be making all relevant announcements via our emails / newsletters. Thank you for your interest!

[majouz]

Have all the kinks been completely ironed out now? My system is still running Vista and would like to know whether it is worth upgrading to Windows 7.

[VidaBox]

The issues are still present but have been reduced in severity. Most customers looking to use the system as a movie server are not affected.