Microsoft Windows has dominated the market for PCs and has been trying to gain a foothold in living rooms with a version of Windows that serves as an entertainment center.

But getting consumers to move their PC from their office to their living rooms -- and hook yet another device up to their TV -- could take some time, experts said.

The Media Center edition of Windows XP, available since 2002, not only makes music, photos and videos easily accessible but also records and plays television programs on a computer monitor or television set hooked up to the PC.

To draw in consumers, computer makers have designed PCs to run quietly and look nice on a stereo rack.

And on Jan. 30, Microsoft will release the consumer edition of Vista, the next version of Windows and the first one to include Media Center, which was available only in certain versions of Windows XP.

Microsoft says Vista is more reliable and offers a quick-start capability, making it more useful as an entertainment hub.

Vista also will support cable cards, which decrypt the cable signal, making a set-top cable box unnecessary. PCs with cable-card hardware should be available next year.

Even before Vista's additional media features, Microsoft spurred sales of the Media Center edition of Windows XP during the past year by reducing the price of the operating system, said Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis at The NPD Group, a market research company based in Port Washington.

Through November, 42 percent of PCs sold at retail (not including mail order or kiosk sales) were Media Center PCs, up from 13 percent for all of 2005, according to NPD Group.

But many of those purchasers don't hook up the PC to their television set, said Charles Golvin, an analyst at Forrester Research, a technology research company in Cambridge, Mass. "That happens to be the operating system and feature set that's in a lot of high-end PCs."

Experts said most Americans haven't yet warmed up to the idea of moving the PC from the office to the living room, in part because the price tag, starting at $1,000, is too high for many consumers and the technology is complex.

And the most compelling function -- recording TV shows digitally -- is provided cheaply by cable or satellite TV companies, Rubin said.

"What is Vista Media Center offering that most consumers don't have or can't easily get in the living room?" Rubin said.

Golvin said consumers don't readily see the advantages of a Media Center PC.

"It's not like something where you see demonstration for 30 seconds at the local Best Buy and you say, 'Oh, wow! This is going to change my life,'" Golvin said.

But Arvind Mishra, senior product manager on Windows Vista responsible for Media Center, said Media Center PCs provide a user experience that "no set-top box is going to be able to match. ... The guiding principle is, how can we make all the digital media easily accessible?"

Consumers don't have to put the PC in the living room to gain access to the PC's photos, video and movies, he said. An Xbox 360 hooked up to a television could view the contents of the PC through a home network, and consumer electronics companies will come out with other products to provide remote access next year, Mishra said.

Karl Barthel, vice president of the Long Island PC Users Group, said making the PC the entertainment hub will be evolutionary, not revolutionary, in part because of the complexity. "You have to remember that a lot of people still don't know how to program a VCR."