Windows Media Center is a built-in application that is meant to be a media hub for all your digital entertainment.  It comes standard in the Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate versions of of Windows 7. It can be used as a media player and compliment to your operating system, or with optional TV tuner cards, can even replace your home DVR and function as a full service media PC.

Windows Media Center’s initial setup isn’t too terribly complex. Actually, If you aren’t using a tuner card it’s pretty much a breeze. I’m going to run through the basics of getting Media Center up and running Windows 7. There are a few optional steps here you can probably skip, but we’ll go over them anyway.

Go to Start > All Programs > Windows Media Center. The first time you open Media Center you will be greeted with the Welcome Screen.

Click “Continue” to get started.

Choose the “Custom” setup option on the right. You can select the Express install if you’d like, but he Custom approach offers far more flexibility.

Windows Media Center will alert you that there are two sections of the startup. Click “Next.”

Choose whether you’d wish to participate in the Customer Experience Improvement Program and click “Next.”

Choose whether you’d like Media Center to pull information such as channel listing (if you have a tuner card) or other media information. This will also update Internet TV and podcast offerings. Click “Next.”

Now the required portion of the setup is completed. Click “Next.”

Optional Setup – Display

Now for the optional portion. Start with how Media Center looks on your display. Click “Next.”

Click “Next.”

Confirm that Windows Media Center is on the primary display that you plan to use for Windows Media Center playback. Click “Next.”

Identify the display type and click “Next.”

Choose your Connection Type and click “Next.”  A typical PC monitor will fall under be DVI, VGA, or DisplayPort.

Choose your display width. Widescreen or Standard.

Confirm your display resolution and click “Next.”

Click “Next” to finish Display setup.

Optional Setup – Speakers

Choose setup speakers and click “Next.”

Click “Next” to begin the Speaker wizard.

Select your speaker setup and click “Next.”

Click “Test” to test your speakers. If you heard a sound, select that option below and click “Next.”

You are finished with the speaker setup. Click “Finish.”

There are, of course, additional configurations that I will cover in the near future…