XP? pro/home

-oRnein9-

Could someone please tell me the differences between windows xp pro and windows xp home since there is a considerable price difference there must be some differences in the product. Any info will be much appreciated.
Thanks
Richy.

seamus

Afaik, XP pro has more features to do with networking and more services.

I think they're the same under the bonnet (secure logins/data, NTFS capability), but home is aimed more at the consumer market, obviously.

Having never seen, let alone used XP home, I can't give much more than that

ColmOT [MSFT]

Pro has these extra features that home doesn't:

SMP support (> 1 physical CPU)
WMI
Inbound Remote Desktop
MMC
Group Policy
Domain capabilities
More granular management tools
EFS
More granular file system security capabilities

and probably more that I forget now!

theciscokid

home has MMC doesn't it?

hmm i remember using that on a home ver. when i used windows before!

ColmOT [MSFT]

Yeah - suppose you're right but it doen't have all the connectors or providers for MMC that Pro does...

To be honest I find MMC in Home pretty useless!

IgnatiusJRiley

Get XP Pro if you ever intend using IIS as you can't use IIS on Home (as I found out recently )

Stephen

Colm - is it possible to change NTFS permissions on a home system? I have Pro on my PC and that's fine, but I have home on my laptop and that has no "security" tab in properties for folders.

-oRnein9-

Thanks for the info so far, any chance of not using abreviations as I'm not too familiar with these, been usin win 98 me whole life, is it possible to set us a two computer network using win xp home?

seamus

-oRnein9- wrote:

Thanks for the info so far, any chance of not using abreviations as I'm not too familiar with these, been usin win 98 me whole life, is it possible to set us a two computer network using win xp home?

Shouldn't be an issue.
If you just want it for sharing files and internet connection, then it'll do just fine.

ColmOT [MSFT]

XP Home has a wizard to help you setup your home network, so it's very easy to use it.

Glossary:

SMP = Symmetrical MultiProcessing
WMI = Windows Managament Instrumentation
MMC = MIcrosoft Management Console
EFS = Encrypted File System

-oRnein9-

I think I'll go with home and save myself a few quid.
Thanks for all the help.
Richy

tman

home edition will be fine for the average home user (say, someone upgrading from 98/me)

egan007

if it helps the cheapest i have found is Marx-conputers 120 euro incl vat (Home)
www.marx-computers.com

ColmOT [MSFT]

Colm - is it possible to change NTFS permissions on a home system? I have Pro on my PC and that's fine, but I have home on my laptop and that has no "security" tab in properties for folders.

Stephen, use cacls.exe from the command prompt. Even though the UI isn't there in home, the underlying functionality is.

Stephen

hmm... I wonder if there's some third party apps i can download to give me a nice ui

ColmOT [MSFT]

Go on - give the command line a go - it's often more powerful than the UI anyway, and it is scriptable!

Puteq

just in case you are still looking for info, i came across this summary before when i was looking into the difference:

---

With Windows XP, the two Windows OS lines merge, so we'll no longer have Windows 2000/Windows NT and Windows Me/Windows 98—just Windows XP. However, we still have two different types of users: the office user and the basic home user with one machine. Hence the two versions of Windows XP: Windows XP Professional Edition, for those accustomed to Win2K Professional/NT Workstation, and Windows XP Home Edition, for those accustomed to Windows Me/Win98.

Although the XP Pro and Home Editions share the same common core code, they don't have the same features. The right version for you depends on the functionality you need. Think of XP Pro as a superset of XP Home. Below is a short list of supported features:

* Backup—XP Pro has the standard Win2K backup program; XP Home has no backup program.
* Dynamic Disks—XP Pro supports dynamic disks; XP Home doesn't.
* IIS—XP Pro includes IIS; XP Home doesn't.
* Encrypted File System (EFS)—EFS debuted in Win2K and lets you encrypt files on an NTFS partition, a very useful feature for mobile machines. XP Pro includes EFS; XP Home doesn't.
* Multiple Monitors—XP Pro supports up to nine monitors; XP Home supports only one monitor (Windows Me/Win98 supported multiple monitors).
* Multiprocessor—XP Pro supports up to two processors; XP Home supports only one (as did Windows Me/Win98).
* Remote Assistance—Both editions support Remote Assistance, which lets someone from a Help desk connect to the client desktop to troubleshoot problems.
* Remote Desktop—XP Pro adds to Remote Assistance by letting any machine running a Terminal Services client run one Terminal Services session against an XP Pro machine.
* Domain Membership—XP Pro systems can be domain members; XP Home systems can't, but they can access domain resources.
* Group Policy—XP Pro supports group policies; XP Home doesn't.
* IntelliMirror—XP Pro supports IntelliMirror, which includes Microsoft Remote Installation Services (RIS), software deployment, and user setting management; XP Home doesn't support IntelliMirror.
* Upgrade from Windows Me/Win98—Both XP Pro and XP Home support this upgrade.
* Upgrade from Win2K/NT—Only XP Pro supports this upgrade.
* 64-bit Support—Only XP Pro will have a 64-bit version that supports the Itanium systems.
* Network Support—XP Pro includes support for Network Monitor, SNMP, IP Security (IPSec), and the Client Services for NetWare (CSNW); XP Home doesn't.

For the best list of supported features, see the Feature Guide document (featguid.doc) on the root of the XP CD-ROM.

ColmOT [MSFT]

Backup—XP Pro has the standard Win2K backup program; XP Home has no backup program.

Home does have a backup utility - it's in the ValueAdd folder on the XP Home CD.

Multiple Monitors—XP Pro supports up to nine monitors; XP Home supports only one monitor (Windows Me/Win98 supported multiple monitors).

As for multimon, all versions of XP support this.

Gurgle

In a nutshell, XP Pro is windows 2000 all coloured in (ie. NT4 with USB support), XP home is Win 98 all coloured in (ie. 95 with USB support).

maxheadroom

Stephen wrote:

hmm... I wonder if there's some third party apps i can download to give me a nice ui

Safe mode has the UI for NTFS permissions IIRC

Stephen

It makes no sense to me why they'd leave the functionality in but remove the UI. Surely the smart thing to do for home edition would have been to switch it off but leave an option for users who need it to turn it on.

meh.

ColmOT [MSFT]

In a nutshell, XP Pro is windows 2000 all coloured in (ie. NT4 with USB support), XP home is Win 98 all coloured in (ie. 95 with USB support).

While I see what you're trying to say here, it's a gross oversimplification.
I'd say somethign like this:

"In a nutshell, XP Pro is Windows 2000 with better hardware support and a nice coloured UI, XP Home is a version of Windows XP Pro targeted at a novice PC/home user, and provides infinately more stability than Windows 9x"

Ciaran500

Stephen wrote:

It makes no sense to me why they'd leave the functionality in but remove the UI. Surely the smart thing to do for home edition would have been to switch it off but leave an option for users who need it to turn it on.

Its so the average user can't just open up these tools and destroy his pc, but the tools are left there so anyone with more knowdlege can access them.

kmick

XP Pro is designed with extra networking capabilities. It is better set up therefore for broadband users than dial up.

ColmOT [MSFT]

From a broadband point of view, XP Home and XP Professional are identical in their capabilities.

seamus

Ciaran500 wrote:

Its so the average user can't just open up these tools and destroy his pc, but the tools are left there so anyone with more knowdlege can access them.

C: -> Deny All -> Everyone

So, so easy to do....

Tom Dunne

Has anyone noticed that since the SP2 upgrade, "home" has disappeared from the XP boot up screen.

And the yellow progress bar has changed to blue, which is the same as XP Pro.

Have I just upgraded to XP Pro?