Shouldn't be too much of a problem. It's just XP home with a buncha extra software installed. You can always disable the media center functions if you wish.

Actually, what i prefer to do with HP computers (and a few others) is to wipe the drive completely and install a fresh copy of XP straight from Microsoft*. HP overloads their installs with tons of useless junk. They're getting better about it, but still you get an enormous amount of extra baggage that just clutters the system and slows it down.

*Note, this probably voids the warranty. So what? Warranties on computers are pretty worthless. Try it out for a day to make sure it's operates correctly, then wipe the drive when you're sure the computer is ok.