Difference between XP Pro and XP Home?

[PresterJohn]

>XP Home cost me $170 Aud, XP Pro best price at the moment, about $350AuD.

i find it rather interesting that for aussies, the pro costs 2x the price. here in the states, the difference isn't quite so glaring.

if you don't have a particular need for the extras that pro offers, xp home should do find...particularly for home environments...

[davidamarkley]

As far as networking, the main diff is: XP Pro lets you join a domain(a dot .com) and XP home doesn't. Most home users don't have a domain anyway. XP pro also supports SMP(multi-processors) and a few other things thatif you need them it's worth it to go ahead and get Pro. But, depending on where you live, Home might be a better choice.

HTH, David

[Shocker]

Don't forget about XP Pro's remote desktop connection to any other Windows OS, whereas Home only connects to other XP machines. Great for accessing a home computer from work, or vice versa.

[Tygur]

Originally posted by goldenbuddha
XP Pro also supports multi threading.....Home does not.

I think you got multithreading (multiple threads in a process) mixed up with SMP (multiple processors in a computer). Multithreading is definitely supported by both WinXP Home and Pro, along with Win9X/ME and WinNT.

SMP, however, is not supported by WinXP Home.

[cadetstimp]

Also PRO will run IIS instead of just personal web server.

Also, the sysprep feature for XP only comes with and works with the corp version... sysprep will not work with retail version due to activation.

[Tygur]

I don't really know what sysprep is, but this knowledge base article appears to be saying that it does work in the Pro version:
http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;q299840

btw, the only reason why I even looked that up was because my curiosity was piqued when cadetstimp mentioned that it was something that was excluded from the pro version...

[cadetstimp]

Corp XP pro has sysprep..... retail XP pro does not because of the activation involved.

[nukes]

You can still install it to a hard disc, then stick it in the machine, then activate it. There is a switch for winnt32 to do that.