XP Home or Professional?

[Streckfus]

I'm currently using Win2K and I love it, but the new PC I'm building requires XP for SATA RAID and SLI features. Is there a major difference between Home Edition and Professional? My home and work PCs all run 2K, so I don't have much experience with XP.

I've used XP Home on another computer and it seems solid enough; never used XP Pro. From what I've heard, XP Pro is basically for IT guys/networking/etc, and my PC will be a stand-alone workstation. I'll use it primarily for digital video/audio production & gaming. (Don't have enough cash to buy two separate, dedicated PCs!)

Right now I'm leaning strongly towards XP Home simply because I won't be doing any networking and don't foresee the need to spend the extra cash on an OS that has a feature set seemingly geared towards business networking applications. Am I wrong?

 

[KoolDrew]

Windows XP Comparison Guide

 

[Streckfus]

Sorry - forgot to add that I'll be using the Athlon 64 3500+ and intend to use the new 64-bit version of XP whenever it's available. Does anyone know if the new 64-bit version be available for both Home & Pro?

 

[Malak]

It's an entirely new XP AFAIK. Not just a patch from home or pro, but something you have to buy.

For you, I'd stick to XP Home.

 

[Streckfus]

Originally posted by: malak
It's an entirely new XP AFAIK. Not just a patch from home or pro, but something you have to buy.

Duh. I guess I should've figured that one out on my own. Thanks for the humility inducer!

 

[duragezic]

Yeah just take a look at that list to decide what you need. For some reason I am running Pro, even after looking at that list I use absolutely NONE of the Pro "features". In fact, I turned all that crap off!

Well, I don't understand what "Software Installation and Maintenance ? automatically install, configure, repair, or remove software applications." means, but I doubt they'd remove such capability in Home.

 

[Streckfus]

Originally posted by: duragezic
Yeah just take a look at that list to decide what you need. For some reason I am running Pro, even after looking at that list I use absolutely NONE of the Pro "features". In fact, I turned all that crap off!

Well, I don't understand what "Software Installation and Maintenance ? automatically install, configure, repair, or remove software applications." means, but I doubt they'd remove such capability in Home.

Yeah, it's kind of an ego thing, knowing that you can set administrative privileges and all that with Pro like you can with 2000, but honestly, if I'm the only one who uses the PC, then who cares, right?

That "Software Installation..." section kind of goofed me up, to. OBVIOUSLY you can add/remove software/hardware with XP Home, but then what does that crap really mean? If I don't know, I probably don't need it, eh?

 

[KoolDrew]

Originally posted by: duragezic
Yeah just take a look at that list to decide what you need. For some reason I am running Pro, even after looking at that list I use absolutely NONE of the Pro "features". In fact, I turned all that crap off!

Well, I don't understand what "Software Installation and Maintenance ? automatically install, configure, repair, or remove software applications." means, but I doubt they'd remove such capability in Home.

The only thing I have used in Professional is the Group Editor.

 

[dev0lution]

If you're not going to use the any of those features in the comparison chart, no real point in Pro. I use access controls, ntfs encryption and remote desktop fairly often, but most of the other features are really for a true network domain environment.