Windows XP Home vs Pro

[davidP]

I will probably be buying a new PC (maybe 2) in the near future, and was wondering if there is any great advantage to be had by getting XP Pro as opposed to XP Home. I'm certainly not a power user in terms of wanting to perform huge numbers of complicated tasks, but I will be running a network of up to 4 PCs (2 XP, 2 Win 98) plus a print server via an ADSL router. I'm used to working with NT & 2000 and have found that I miss the additional tools like task manager when I use my home machines on Win98, so is it worth the extra outlay for XP Pro over XP Home?

 

ps. No, I'm not interested in getting Linux even though in your opinion Microsoft are the spawn of the devil. I simply can't be arsed to spend my time learning something like that when I can buy a product I already (probably) understand to the level I need it

 

[ 08. June 2004, 01:21 PM: Message edited by: davidP ]

[jeepster]

i havent noticed much difference, i used pro on my old machine, and when i bought my new laptop with home already installed i thought i'd give it a go before i deleted it and installed pro, and a year later its still on!

[argyll]

I had pretty much the same experience and have settled on the home version as a business tool. I think you need to look very carefully at the 'Pro' functions and ask yourself whether you really need them.

[Newt]

DavidP - the main things you give up with home when compared to the pro version are the ability to fine tune your security settings, some control over how you set up your network shares, and the total inability to join the PC to a domain.

 

For many folks these are all non-issues and in that case, XP-home is as good as XP-pro and for a little less money.

 

If I were using the OS in a business I would opt for Pro because of the sharing limitations imposed by the fact that XP-home will only allow 'Simple File Sharing' while with XP-pro you can turn it on or off.

 

If I had children at home I would opt for Pro because otherwise you have real problems trying to set things up so your stuff can be held private. It can be done, sort of, but it isn't easy and even at best you don't have nearly the variety of options.

 

The domain joining is either critical if you need (or will need) to do it or a non-issue if you don't.

[Lid]

XP Pro also come with Microsoft IIS which allows you so to run web server based applications.