Just boot the Ubuntu live cd. You don't need to install any software to do that and it won't touch your windows system. If Ubuntu comes up and your network and all other devices are ok, then lmce should be fine. However, unless your video card is an nvidia 6xxx or greater you won't get the alpha blending + 3d. You can install lmce on a separate hdd or separate partition. Or, install lmce on another old spare pc in the house, even one that's an old pc with an outdated video card. Make it a dedicated core, and it will boot up in plain old text mode and just sit there and serve net boot images to any other pc's in the house. Then in yoru windows pc, just go to the bios's boot menu and make net boot a higher priority to boot up as an lmce media station. Again it won't touch yoru windows instlal on the hdd.
