What's the difference between
Windows XP Home and Professional editions
Question: "What's the difference between Windows XP Home and Professional
editions?"
Answer:
The Home and Professional editions of Windows XP are nearly identical;
the only differences are additional features found in the Professional
edition that may not likely appeal to home users. The primary differences,
aside from the price and the colour of the packaging, are as follows:
WINDOWS XP HOME
EDITION
Contains basic
support for multiple users, but all users are "Administrators,"
so there's no way to set up user accounts with limited privileges.
Furthermore, there's no way to secure folders or files from other
users on the same machine.
Built-in support
for peer-to-peer networking.
WINDOWS XP PROFESSIONAL EDITION
Includes extended
support for multiple users and profiles, as well as security between
users. A user can be an "Administrator" (who has full power
to make any changes to the system), or a less-privileged user with
a customizable level of privileges. For example, one user's folder
can be protected from other users on the same system. Also, you can
set up a "guest" account, allowing strangers to use a computer
while limiting access to configuration tools and private files.
Built-in support
for peer-to-peer networking, plus support for joining a "Windows
NT domain."
The Professional
edition includes the following components not found in the Home edition:
- Administrative
- Tools
(in the Start Menu and Control Panel)
- Automated System Recovery (ASR)
- Backup
- Boot Configuration Manager
- DriverQuery
- Group Policy Refresh Utility
- Multi-lingual User Interface (MUI) add-on
- NTFS Encryption Utilitiy
- Offline Files and Folders
- OpenFiles
- Performance Log Manager
- Remote Desktop
- Scheduled Tasks Console
- Security Template Utility
- Taskkill
- Tasklist
- Telnet Administrator
Provides support
for multi-processor systems (2 or 4 CPUs), Dynamic Disks, Fax.
