I will be rebuilding my HTPC in the next couple of weeks. My new home theater/entertainment area will be ready in the next 3 weeks. I'll let you know if there are any snags or changes to NVDVD, XP. If I have a chance I will check out MCE since a fair bit use it. as for the interface I have been so used to XP. All I did was buy a wireless keyboard and re-produced all the keyboard keys on the learning remote so I barely need the keyboard or mouse to run XP.

http://www.quadloft.com/hometheater- new HT