Microsoft is currently receiving many complaints on the Technet forums about the absence of Windows Media Center in the Windows 8 RTM editions and inability to purchase a key. The software that allows users to record, organize and playback digital content was first introduced in a special edition of Windows XP, called the Windows XP Media Center Edition and later it became a part of Windows Vista Home Premium, Vista Ultimate and Windows 7 by default. For the release of Windows 8 Microsoft decided to not include WMC, likely because the software contains support for audio and video formats that require license fees to paid which is also the reason Windows 8 does not support native DVD playback.
For Windows 8, Microsoft announced that it would release an add-on package. The add-on will either upgrade Windows 8 to Windows 8 Pro with WMC another package will convert a standard Windows 8 to Pro with WMC. On Windows 8 Enterprise editions it's not possible to install Windows Media Center.
Users on the Microsoft Technet forums complain that they have installed Windows 8, spending hours on upgrading multiple PC's, to find out that Microsoft hasn't released a possibility to upgrade yet. Some users are reporting that using a pirated key disabled their legitimate Windows 8 activation.
