there are now two fantastic vista media center plugins that i consider must-have for any vista media center install:

1) media browser – great media browser for your content.
2) vista media center tcp/ip controller – control your media center remotely via HTTP calls!

how cool is vmcController? i’m making a web page that my iphone can hit to control the media center. way more stable than the mediaremote app i tried using that served the same function.