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Difference Between Windows XP Home and Pro

C

Cashmoney995

Senior member
Well after the little cute 30 day expose of WinXP ran out, im lookin to see which ver of WinXP i should buy.

Main thing I was wondering is, does Windows XP Proffesional have the User switch interface?

Like in XP Home you boot up and you have all the user account buttons set up, u can click which one u want to log onto and such. Does Windows Xp Proffesional have that?
 
simply put, professional has everything that home does.
it also has the ability to make "guest" account where that account doesn't have full access to the computer.
 
You're welcome. 😉

Yeah, I knew what you were talking about. The UI element to which you referred is the Welcome Screen. The ability to switch users using this component is called Fast User Switching.

- prosaic
 
Originally posted by: GtPrOjEcTX
simply put, professional has everything that home does.
it also has the ability to make "guest" account where that account doesn't have full access to the computer.
Click to expand...

Actually, you can create the "non-standard" (in Windows XP) user accounts like Power User and Guest in the Home Edition, too. You can get to the appropriate user accounts dialog by going into the Start | Run dialog and entering "control userpasswords2" and hitting the Enter key. The Guest account is already there, actually. But in this dialog you can change the its name and enter a password for it.

- prosaic

 
XP corp does not require online activation, so you dont have to worry about having to call microsoft because you have to reinstall too many times.
also, corp/pro makes it much easier to map network drives at startup, and keep them mapped.
other than that, its pretty much the same.
 
Originally posted by: prosaic
Originally posted by: GtPrOjEcTX
simply put, professional has everything that home does.
it also has the ability to make "guest" account where that account doesn't have full access to the computer.
Click to expand...

Actually, you can create the "non-standard" (in Windows XP) user accounts like Power User and Guest in the Home Edition, too. You can get to the appropriate user accounts dialog by going into the Start | Run dialog and entering "control userpasswords2" and hitting the Enter key. The Guest account is already there, actually. But in this dialog you can change the its name and enter a password for it.

- prosaic
Click to expand...
yep, I know you can create different accounts in home, but all the accounts have the same rights as the admin account, and you can't do anything about that.

my key point was "where that account doesn't have full access to the computer"

 
yep, I know you can create different accounts in home, but all the accounts have the same rights as the admin account, and you can't do anything about that.
Click to expand...

That's not the way it works here. The Guest accounts on these home machines do NOT have the same rights as the admin account. Nor do the User accounts have the same rights as the admin account. And I didn't have to do anything special to make that happen. But, if I did, there are always the command line interface tools for controlling ACLs. There's really quite a bit of flexibility in limiting access to various user types -- even in Windows XP Home Edition.

Of course, I'd prefer to use the GUI tools in the Professional version. The only reason I have Home Edition on any machines is in cases where I had to use an OEM operating system version. For instance, Sony sells video editing systems with Home Edition only on them. You can upgrade the OS, but then you can't install the included applications which check at install time for the OEM system install. But I found the workarounds to be quite sufficient for locking down normal and guest user accounts on these machines. They cannot take ownership or roam about the hard drive at will. The guest accounts (which are used for data transfer between machines) cannot log on locally, and they can't install software -- not even screensavers. I could lock down the User accounts that far, too. As it is, there are plenty of rights that the User accounts don't have by default.

- prosaic
 
Originally posted by: MattTheTech
XP corp does not require online activation, so you dont have to worry about having to call microsoft because you have to reinstall too many times..
Click to expand...


Copy of XP Pro that I have required activation. I've got 15 days left on a fresh install.
 
Ooooh, I can think of so many different items in Windows XP that work better than they do in Windows 2000. For people who use Windows 2000 in certain, specific contexts there may not be a significant different between the two operating systems. But Windows XP incorporates substantial security and other functional improvements over Windows 2000, improvements that some users use every day.

Improved features of Windows XP over Windows 2000 I've helped new users of the OS use this week so far (only two days):

1. Wireless Networking Support

2. Credentials Saving support for RUNAS

3. PPPoE support

4. Fast User Switching (a major enhancement for families in which two or more people might need to be logged on to the system simultaneously)

There's a lot more to like than the extent of the product life cycle. Honestly.

- prosaic
 
Originally posted by: KingofFah
If you must have windows, get 2k pro.
Click to expand...

A little forum advice, when someone starts a thread called "Difference Between Windows XP Home and Pro", it's rude to come in and tell them to run 2k, Linux, AmigaDos, etc.

Same as Home, with some added in remote stuff.
Click to expand...

One other thing to consider, if you think you might eventually want to get one of the Windows 'Smart Displays', you'll need Pro (SmartDisplays require the remote desktop ability)

Bill

 
Yes, it is rude to tell someone to get a different OS when they are asking something completely different.
I personally prefure Pro, because of it's slightly enhanced network stability and added remote access features. It also has a stripped down version of IIS, but most people running XP would use apache anyway for web hosting, there are also enhanced security features available on Pro that are not included in the Home edition which is why most larger businesses use XP pro over the home edition or win2k.
If your using it pretty much to learn XP and play games with some work done on it that doesn't have to be accessed remotely then Home is the way to go, save the $50 and buy a new game. If you plan on being away from the machine and want to access the machine remotely though the internet with you lappy, then you will need the remote desktop capabilities of Pro. You can find all the answers by going to the microsoft.com site and doing a search for Windows XP, then just look at the differences between the two, they actually cover the topics fairly well.
 
Originally posted by: FriedToast
Originally posted by: MattTheTech
XP corp does not require online activation, so you dont have to worry about having to call microsoft because you have to reinstall too many times..
Click to expand...


Copy of XP Pro that I have required activation. I've got 15 days left on a fresh install.
Click to expand...

XP Pro requires activation. However, XP Pro Corporate Edition does not require activation at all. If you can find it or afford it, go with XP Pro Corp. Re activating is a pain in the ***. I had to do it once after i had changed hardware configurations too many times and MS Support literally fought me every step of the way. It took them 45 minutes to understand that i wasn't pirating it and i didn't want to spend another 100 bucks to re activate a copy i bought legally. After that fiasco...i went corporate all the way.


XP home is in sum up just a stripped out version of XP Pro. I'm not positive but i don't think there were any major core kernel changes or anything of the like between the two.
 
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