"These days, a PC can also benefit from a remote control, letting you can extend your couch potato ways to its operation as well. This typically involves either using special function buttons on a remote, or using the remote for simple navigation through a user interface. That way, the remote can replace both mouse and keyboard, at least for many typical activities. PC remote controls generally require Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE) 2005 and its special multimedia interface to perform all their tricks. But PC remotes are also quite usable even with older versions of Windows, as well as with other multimedia interfaces such as PowerCinema from Cyberlink. In this round-up, we'll look at six Windows remote control products from Soundgraph, Thermaltake and VL System."This extremely thorough review takes a 29 page look at 6 remote control options for your PC. Obviously, you will get the most bang out of one of these if you have a HTPC, but they do offer enough functionality to also be useful to standard XP users.