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[OPINIONS WANTED] - XP Home vs XP Pro

Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 7:41 pm
by RobertGonzalez
I am totally thrilled that I just got a new laptop. However, I hear a lot of buzz about XP Pro being so much better than XP Home, which is what my machine came standard with. Before I rush out and plunk down $200 on a Micro$oft software upgrade I want to know if I should.

What are your thoughts and opinions? All responses are much appreciated.

Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 7:45 pm
by Deemo
It depends on what your using it for. Pro is more secure, Home is much more basic. You get what you pay for. I wouldnt necessarily say that pro is "better", so i dont know if its worth the money.

take a look at this link, it might help you see some of the differences: http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/wi ... me_pro.asp

If i were you i would try out a linux distribution though :D

Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 7:48 pm
by feyd
Pro is quite a bit better than Home. Here's a basic analogy: Home = Win 95, Pro = Win 2000.. Pro has a more security built-in and better controls internally.

Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 7:55 pm
by neophyte
I bought my first laptop almost a year ago. At that time I had no intention of developing for Windows or using my laptop professionally. Now I wish I had gotten XP pro for my laptop pre-installed. Why? It's cheaper to buy a laptop with XP Pro (OEM) preinstalled than to buy a license out right. Second there is no IIS on Home. 3. No support for connecting your laptop to a Domain. So you might have trouble taking it to work and connecting to a network bigger than the one you have at home. So buy it with XP Pro preinstalled.

Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 8:25 pm
by RobertGonzalez
I had heard that IIS is not installed on XP Home. But I had also heard that you can install it if you have the windows disk. That is certainly something I want to be able to do. Unfortunately I was not able to get the OS upgrade preinstalled. I don't mind buying the license and installing the upgrade myself. I haven't even used the thing yet so it is still essentially fresh.

I am planning on using this machine like my current laptop. As a networked, development machine. On my current set up (my old laptop) I am running Win2K, IIS, PHP4, MySQL4, SQL Server 7, .NET framework 1.1 and all of my development tools: Zend studio, photoshop, illustrator, dreamweaver, flash, Visual Studio, WebMatrix, enterprise manager, MySQL Administrator, etc. I am connected to my home network via a WEP encrypted 108Mbps Linksys wireless network. My network shares three other machines and a printer.

Another question I have is if I begin setting up all my software, will upgrading OS's screw anything up? Your thoughts on this?

Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 8:30 pm
by feyd
I've never had issues with upgrading after installing software and stuff. I do prefer starting from the "correct" OS first however...

Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 9:19 pm
by timvw
I've found that visual studio and other programming related stuff don't like to be installed on a home edition (iis, sql server, ...).

The other advantage of the pro version is that you can become part of a w2k3 domain and have roaming profiles and all the likes :)

With the home edition you can make bacups of your homedirectory (and registery settings etc) but can't restore them (which makes them pretty useless). With the pro version you can restore too :)

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 12:56 am
by RobertGonzalez
Thanks for the input. I think I am going to upgrade now before I put anything on my machine. I am really not a big windows fan, but my *nix knowledge is very limited and the deal on the machine was too good to pass up. Maybe I'll reassemble my Compaq Armada M700 PII 933 to be a linux development machine. Who knows.

Once again, thanks for all your wonderful input.

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 8:29 am
by Jenk
I prefer pro, because I am trained and paid to use it.

Home is still not to be sniffed at, you don't have the control in home that you do in pro, you also don't have any AD, or other such functionality as you in Pro, but to Ms. Miggins who boots up once a week to check mails for the local Cribbage Club, and barely knows how to do that, it makes precisely no difference.

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 3:37 pm
by RobertGonzalez
Can someone tell me the difference between "Academic" and "Commercial" pricing when it comes to the XP Pro upgrade? Are they the same application priced differently or are they two different applications?

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 3:39 pm
by Jenk
at a guess... student rates versus the rest of the world

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 3:42 pm
by feyd
Academic license often has further restrictions on it, such as you have to prove you are a student, it cannot be used for commercial work, etc etc.. whereas the commercial has no such restrictions.

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 4:26 pm
by RobertGonzalez
So if I was to buy an academic priced version on eBay by a licensed reseller that doesn't require verification, I could expect the same exact application? I know I sound like a cheap SOB (probably because I am), but I am trying to save a little bit of cash. I could go to Best Buy right now and spend $200 and buy it and be done, but something makes me want to try to get a better price.

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 4:32 pm
by feyd
Overall, it will be the exact same stuff. It may or may not have limitations in the software however, or loudly say that it's an academic version.. Some manufacturers switch around how things work for them.. I can't remember what Microsoft does.. I would guess little if any is different. (Outside of the license.)

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 5:00 pm
by timvw
Overhere, the academic version is exactly the same (but you are expected to uninstall it after three years, or when you graduate..)