Over the past year, I've really grown attached to Windows Media Center: its DVR functionality, plus extending movies, music and photos to other parts of my home, and then taking that music, movies and photos with me on my (Windows Mobile) device. It all amounts to a great experience, and one I find I miss, even when on vacation (go ahead -- call me a nerd). Now I'm looking forward to seeing Windows Vista Media Center on some of the new hardware I’ve heard rumored about.
One question I get from people who were early adopters of Media Center is what's going to happen with Windows XP Media Center Extenders once Windows Vista is released. If you have an Xbox 360 as your extender, then you are all set; you’ll just need a software update and it will work with Windows Vista. You can expect to other kinds of extenders on the market in the future. But for the older Xbox and other extenders (like the Linksys and HP), the story is a little more complicated.
Windows Vista incorporates better DRM, which will enable content like native digital cable support for HD. The Windows XP extenders aren't technically capable of being updated to support the new DRM requirement, so they will not support Windows Vista. They will continue to work just fine with Windows XP, though.
However, there is a way to get your content through your extender using Windows Vista, assuming you keep your Windows XP Media Center around. Set up your home network to share files from the PC running Windows Vista to the PC running Windows XP, and the Windows XP based PC will aggregate all of your content and present it to your extender. This way you can enjoy Windows Vista at home and still use your extender to access all the content on both PCs.