XP - Home Edition vs. Professional Edition

[Mark Holtz]

Okay, I'm a MCSE, and I'm confused. Must Consult Someone Experienced.

What the heck is the difference between XP Home and XP Pro? I think I can get by with the Home edition, since all I plan on doing is web browsing, burn CDs, watch DVDs, word processing, etc. So, what advantages does Pro have that Home doesn't.

I just love MicroSoft. I can understand the discontinuation of 95 in favor of 98, but now they will no longer certify drivers for 98, indicating that they will force obsolence on 98, as well as 2000. So, according to www.newegg.com, here are the OEM prices for the software:

Win98 SE - $91
WinMe - $91
XP Home - $90
XP Pro - $139
2000 Pro - $140

[James_F]

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_home_pro.asp

Unless you need to access a domain or run Internet Information Server, you only need Home. Save the money...

[MarkA]

Or want encryption in the OS... Or a few other nice goodies. XP Pro is worth the money if you're a serious user.

[n0qcu]

Also if you want more than 5 machines in your peer to peer network you'll need PRO.

[James_F]

But he said he didn't need that functionality. Home would be fine.

[gcutler]

I consider myself a serious user and often do alot of work from home, and I have never run into a problem using XP-Home. Unless he has a specific Corporate type need (not to hard to describe what work stuff he might be doing at home?) then go XP-Home.

On XP-Home. I can run anything XP-Office Pro requires, I can access my corporate e-mail from home, etc, etc. Actually the only people who might want XP-Pro at home are those who are working toward MCSE certification and they need to learn that stuff. Or maybe they have a small business at home, they may need XP-Pro, but even then that is a big if?

[James_F]

Like I said, I have both XP Home and Pro. I upgraded a Win98SE to Home and my laptop came with pro. I've never run into anything that I've needed Pro for. There is only two things that the user would even care about.

1. Log into Domains (Active Directory)
Home can browse networks, but not participate in them. You can see other computers into the domain, just not authenticate in them. Why this would ever be an issue is beyond me, who has the time/money to run Active Directory and home? :shrug:

2. Internet Information Server.
Again why would anyone really need this at home. If a web-server is ever needed, just run apache.

Explain to me why you would ever need Encrypting File System on a home network?

Look read my link (http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_home_pro.asp) above and tell me why Pro is needed at home?

Oh and you can always upgrade Home to Pro if needed later on. So don't waste your money on Pro.

[W1CPO]

To see which version of XP is right for you, take a look at:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/whichxp.asp

[Ryan]

The remote access feature of XPPro is interesting, but there's got to be some third party solution available, too.

[cnsf]

ISn't Remote Assitance also on Home? I have Pro on my end and have many people send me Remote Assistance requests who have Home. Would I not be able to help them if I didn't have Pro?

[MarkA]

Remote assistance and remote access are different