Remember you should have both an XP Home Edition and MCE 2005 license to perform this upgrade.

What you need:

• Windows XP Home Edition SP2 Installation Disc
• Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 Installation CDs (2)
• Imaging tool to rip and edit ISO such as UltraISO
• A working Windows install on an alternative PC or the one you are about to upgrade
• MCE 2005 compatible hardware

Now the procedure:

Preparation; we first need to convert our XP Home Edition Install Disc to an almost Professional Edition so:

1. Rip the Windows XP Home Edition CD to the computer in ISO format.
2. Open the ISO up for editing and extract setupreg.hiv from the i386 folder to your desktop.
3. Open up Regedit by typing regedit into the command prompt found in the Start Menu.
4. Highlight HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and then click File > Load Hive… > setupreg.hiv.
5. Assign any memorable name you wish.
6. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Homekey\ControlSet001\Services\setupdd and change the value "01" to "00" and the value "02" to "00".
7. Now highlight the hive's key as named earlier and click File > Unload Hive…
8. Find the fixed registry hive and return it to the ISO overwriting the default one.
9. Burn the CD.

Now the install:

1. Insert the Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 CD1 into the computer and boot from it.
2. Format the target drive as nothing must remain from the previous install.
3. Install as normal ensuring you use both discs.
4. Boot it up on the initial boot so it sets things up but DO NOT install any updates yet.
5. Reboot the computer and boot from the Windows XP Home Edition CD.
6. Perform a 'Repair' install over the Media Center install. Let this proceed as normal.
7. Now let it boot up for the first time.

Finalising the install:

1. Open up regedit again on your new Windows XP Home Media Center install and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\WPA\MediaCenter\Installed and ensure the value is set to "1" (DWORD). Then navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup\SystemPrefix and change the Hex values to CE:13:00:00:00:00:3E:C8.
2. Run Windows Update multiple times to ensure all updates are obtained including Windows Media Center Edition 2005 Update Rollup 2.
3. Enjoy.

This is untested on a proper Windows XP Professional install however it should work just avoiding the preparation steps. This worked for me and everything works (haven't tested remote as I don't own one) that I ahve tried including a TV Tuner.

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