windows xp home or pro

pro

What makes you say pro. I have also wondered this question but XP home works for me

Pro supports additional 'advanced' security for file and printer sharing, and it also supports dual CPU, IE AMD 4x4.

Apart from that Pro and Home are exactly the same. The Pro CD includes a handfull of files which are 'slightly' different from Home, when enable the additional features.

Home will support Intels Quad Core processor without any patches, as its license is per CPU, not per Core. They both use exactly the same memory, and thread management systems.

For a gaming system, unless you are going for 64bit edition, which is only available in 'Pro' then you might as well get XP home.

Unlike the crippled XP 'Basic', XP Home offers about 99.9% of XP pro's functionality.

Here is an article that pinpoints the differences.

An interesting link, but I stick with my original comments re Home/Pro.

The 'big' deciders for home users are 64bit edition, which is only available in a 'pro' version, and the ability to use a dual CPU's. The remaining features are pretty useless to home users.

Sure Microsoft wanted to remove the 'backup' program from XP Home, but it was never very good in the first place. Much better to get a 3rd party backup software.

XP Pro would support a hypothetical dual 'quad core cpu' workstation setup giving 8 processor cores. XP home on the other hand is 'limited' to Single processor multi core. But that means it can still support Intels 'Kentsfield' when it comes out, But it wont be able to support AMD 4X4.

For most people, myself included, XP Home does the job adequately. Since you say you're mainly into gaming, the additional features of XP Pro would be of little or no value, imho.

i just bought XP Home for my system. i have a Intel Pentium D 805 processor - whici to the best of my knowledge is a dual core processor - and Home works fine! i'm not sure where this dual processor supprt only for Pro comes from, but under my CPU usage graph i see two graphs (one for each processor).
the reason i didn't get Pro was because i have no need (or desire) for IIS, or Microsoft network components.
to my understanding, a 64bit OS is pointless if you don't have 64bit applications to use on it.

If all you're concerned with is games, then just go with XP Home. By the time 4X4 or quad ships and anybody's actually ready for it, most will be upgrading to Vista anyway. XP Home is just fine for a game machine and 98% of the other stuff you might be doing with it. You won't experience any handicap with Home versus Pro.

Software RAID, ability to access dynamic disks, ability to join Domains, you never know how usefull all these things are till you need them and cant have them.

He's looking for something that he can play games on. Xp Home will do just fine. Anything more serious should be handled with Linux anyway and that one's free!

Pro- i won't touch Home with a ten foot pole. For me, remote desktop is highly useful and it only works in Pro.

i agree! rdesktop is fine if you really really need to access something from work on your home PC or you are using the thing as a server - and in that case Pro all the way (well linux truly, but some of us are only human). i don't leave my machine on because it heats up my studio apartment too much! if you are going to use RAID, then get a mobo with an onboard controller. i would rather use the price difference btw Home and Pro to fund some other software/game purchases. :wink:
i'm still curious with regards to this multiple processor story though. does it affect multiple cores too? or is it solely related to the number of CPU sockets on the mobo. if the latter is the case, then not many people will have multiple CPUs boa

I just built a dual core system 2 weeks ago and I put PRO on that pc but this pc will be for gaming only so I think Ill save a few $ and go with Home version.

xp home does support more than one core per cpu... but not more than one cpu socket... such as, if you have more than 1 cpu on a motherboard occupying more than 1 cpu socket, the OS wont function properly, because it doesnt have support for that

XP pro on the other hand, does have support for multiple cpu sockets... thats the main difference there though

the OS recognizes the multiple cores as seperate logical cpus (akin to hyperthreading in a sense)... but in all reality, theyre still the same cpu, theyre just with the addition of numerous cores

Yes, to clarify the cpu cores issue,

If intel/amd released a processor with 100 cpu cores, that pluged into a single sockets, XP home 'should' support it (although as this example is so exaggerated it might need a patch  ). Home fully supports multicore.

Pro supports 2 cpu sockets, again, each socket can be multicore, so if you had a 2 socket motherboard, and a pair of 8 core processors, Pro should give you access to all 16 cores. (If intel ever reintroduce hyperthreading, quad core processors like Kentsfield would appear in windows as 8 core chips). XP supports Dual CPU

I believe XP server edition supports up to 8 CPU sockets on the lowest license, but higher versions can be bought.