Hi, I will soon be building a homebuilt machine, so I'll need to buy a new OS license. It seems like XP is undoubtedly the way to go for gaming, but which version do I need? Is there any benefit to getting professional?

Also, do any of the versions of XP come with excel, word etc.?

Is there any tangible advantage to not going OEM (hoping I got the right acronym there)?

Finally, I have been looking for copies on pricegrabber, but if anyone has some advice as to where I should look, I would very much appreciate it.

Thanks.

grumpy knows a good place if I remember for you to get an oem

I like pro but others like home.

No advantage to going with Pro unless you're connecting to a network domain. The two are virtually identical with the exception of networkability. Unless you're connecting to a large corporate network (or college network), you'll be just fine with Home.

OEM is cheaper; you don't get a fancy box and you don't get free support from MS. The recent changes in MS's licensing means that an OEM copy of XP can only be installed on one computer... it can never be uninstalled and then reinstalled on a new computer. Of course, you probably could get away with doing it, but by the time you're ready for a new computer, XP will be long dead.

Windows XP Home OEM - $89.00

Grumpy

Also, no, no versions of XP come with Office (Excel, Word, etc).