XP Home vs XP Pro

Stuart Wright

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If you're not administering loads of users, is there any point in shelling out the extra 30 quid for XP pro over XP home?
 
Nope. :) .. IIRC Pro gives you Domain membership and SMP support as the main 'benefits', neither of interest I suspect.
 
As an aside on this topic, does anyone know what the difference between a retail and an OEM version of XP is? Also, what's the best price people have seen the retail and OEM versions for sale at? I just did a search on kelkoo.co.yk and the lowest price for XP Pro retail was £197 !
 
There is a BIG difference between OEM and retail...the OEM version can *ONLY* be legally bought with an item of non-peripheral hardware (ie either a whole new PC or a significant bit of the innards, such as a HDD). No reputable dealer will sell you an OEM copy on its own, and you're not officially licensed with it.

There are no other real differences between OEM and full retail.

As for the differences between XP home and Pro:

Yes, the main difference is the ability to connect to a Windows Domain. I don't think it has IIS either (or if it does it's with extremely reduced functionality). A while ago I had to install an online app on 3 XP home PCs, and it needed SQL server and IIS. In the end I had to shell out for XP Pro, but I can't remember the exact details of the missing features.

If you don't have a domain controller, have no interest in website hosting, and only have a single CPU, I'd get XP home.
 
Yandros said:
No reputable dealer will sell you an OEM copy on its own, and you're not officially licensed with it.
Yes, but who cares?

After all it's just stupid marketing games by Microsoft and if I've purchased a legal copy then it's not MY problem if the dealer wasn't authorised to sell it, is it?
 
Many companies are now offering an oem copy sold with an ide cable - check out ebay computer shops.
 
Exactly, it's just a marketing gimmic which M$ are doing pretty much nothing to try to stop .. after all, with $80bn+ in the bank what difference does a few more $100m make?
 
I may be wrong here :suicide: but I'm sure I remember reading that for Hyper Threading support you need XP Pro ?
 
The other difference with pro is that you can use remote desktop into it.
 
JohnG said:
I may be wrong here :suicide: but I'm sure I remember reading that for Hyper Threading support you need XP Pro ?

I'm sure home supports up to 2 processors, including HT chips. Pro supports up to 8? Although i guess if you're running 8 CPUs you'll be running 2003 Server or similar.
 
JohnG said:
I may be wrong here :suicide: but I'm sure I remember reading that for Hyper Threading support you need XP Pro ?
I used to think that too because Home doesn't support SMP but I've been told several times that HT doesn't use the SMP kernel and that in fact Home does recognise HT.
 
Now this is important because the current spec for my new machine will run hyper threading:

1 Gigabyte 8i925X-G Socket-775 I925X ATX - Sound Gb-Lan USB2 800FSB SATA DDR2 Retail Box
1 Intel Pentium® 4 550 3.4GHZ HT 1M 800FSB Processor With Ht Technology Retail
1 Corsair (TWIN2X1024-5400C4PRO), 1024MB (2 x 512MB Matched Pair), DDR2 5400, 2x64Mx64, non-ECC, 2x240 DIMM, unbuffered, 4-4-4-12, TwinX PRO Series with activity LEDs, Lifetime Warranty
1 Sapphire Radeon X800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AGP VGA VIVO DVI-I Retail Box
2 Western Digital WD740GD Raptor 74GB Serial ATA 10,000rpm 8mb Cache - OEM
2 Western Digital WD2000JD 200GB Serial ATA150 7200rpm 8mb Cache- OEM
1 APC 650va/400w Ups With Internet Dsl Fax Or Modem Protection
1 Logitech Mx510 2 Button USB/PS2 Optical Mouse
 
Read this page on Microsoft's web site Spectre, that'll put your mind at rest. :)

Note: Windows XP Home can use a maximum of one (1) physical processor. However, because Hyper-Threading is supported, the operating system takes advantage of the second (virtual) processor.
A more detailed description is available here


BTW, I don't think it'll be of concern, but Pro can create RAID 5 in software whereas Home is limited to RAID 0 I believe .. certainly Disk Manager in Pro supports more sophisticated disk handling than that in Home, because Pro equates to 2K Server in this respect while Home equates to 2K Pro.
 
BTW, I don't think it'll be of concern, but Pro can create RAID 5 in software whereas Home is limited to RAID 0 I believe .. certainly Disk Manager in Pro supports more sophisticated disk handling than that in Home, because Pro equates to 2K Server in this respect while Home equates to 2K Pro.

Not quite, Pro can do mirroring or striping but not "5", you need a server edition to do 5.
 
I wasn't sure whether Home supported RAID 1 or not, I've never used software RAID 1, thanks for the correction.
 
Aparrently I have to get a RAID controller cos the one on the MB only takes 2 discs RAID 1.
I want a fast mirrored setup for the OS and essential apps. Then I want a second mirror using 2 larger capacity drives for resources and less frequently run apps.
 
Is that case XP's software RAID 1 on two 'normal' disks would seem to do for your needs without having to mess with another controller.

Of course, it may depend on how flexible your BIOS is in how it sequences normal IDE and RAID disks as far as disk 0, disk 1, disk 2 is concerned .. assuming you want to try to get C: on the hardware RAID set.
 

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