You don't have to keep all your digital music files on the hard drive of your Windows XP Media Center Edition PC. You can have files on other networked computers or even on a file server (a computer just for storing files and sending them out to other computers). With My Music, you can play these files on your MCE PC without having to copy them over to the MCE PC's hard drive.

First, your network must be up and running. Second, you must have file sharing turned on for your music folders on those other computers. Third, add the files to your Media Library; the only difference is that instead of choosing Local Drives, minus program folders option, you choose All Drives. Any networked computers that you have access to will be included in the search, and any music files found will be added to your library. The files themselves are not moved, but Media Center knows where they are and can access them.

Please note, some wireless networks (particularly those using the slower 802.11b protocol) may not be fast enough for this process to work well.