XP Home vs. XP PRO

Tony Palmer · Post by **Tony Palmer** » 16 Nov 2005 2:52 pm

Is it true you can't network with XP Home?
Other than that, if it's true, is there any other difference?

mickd · Post by **mickd** » 16 Nov 2005 2:59 pm

you can certainly do basic networking with XP Home but you can't do Domain Logins (not that you'd ever want to do that in a non-office environment anyway).
I just bought a new PC with XP Home and I networked it with my old W98 PC so I could move files across and (once I'd got it set up, which isn't easy) it worked fine.

Tony Palmer · Post by **Tony Palmer** » 16 Nov 2005 3:25 pm

I should have mentioned I'm using this in an office environment with 11 computers already on a network.

John Bresler R.I.P. · Post by **John Bresler R.I.P.** » 16 Nov 2005 5:05 pm

I ran a piece of cat 5 cable and networked my wifes computer and mine so we could share pictures, files, and a network printer. Works great!! We both use XP home edition.

[This message was edited by John Bresler on 16 November 2005 at 05:06 PM.]

Ken Lang · Post by **Ken Lang** » 16 Nov 2005 6:40 pm

I have four computers at home.
1 with Win 95
1 with Win 98
2 with XP home

They are all networked together and work just fine. No infighting with each other at all.

Jim Peters · Post by **Jim Peters** » 16 Nov 2005 8:55 pm

Most people do not need XP Pro. You can network home with great results. Pro has some security feaures beefed up for corporate use, but home will most probably work for you. JP

Chuck Hall · Post by **Chuck Hall** » 17 Nov 2005 4:08 am

I maintain a business net with 6 computers all running XP home. I don't need domain log in so it works well for me. One is a POS computer with cas drawer, pole and receipt center. I control that one with screensaver password. WThey don't have but 4 employees so it works well in that situation.

Jeff Agnew · Post by **Jeff Agnew** » 17 Nov 2005 5:31 am

... is there any other difference?

Pro and Home handle user permissions differently. The Home version may offer too few or too many restrictions in an office environment, while Pro offers a much finer degree of control. Check with your office IT manager to see if Home is acceptable with their policies.

Wiz Feinberg · Post by **Wiz Feinberg** » 17 Nov 2005 2:42 pm

There is something else to consider when you decide to run a peer to peer network using the Windows XP Home OS... It only allows 5 concurrent users to connect to shares. This can easily be exceeded in a small office or even in a large household.

Windows XP Professional and Windows 2000 Professional allow up to 10 concurrent connections, on a P2P network. Therefore, I would advise making sure that the computer that is going to do the job of a "File Server" should be running Windows 2000 or XP Professional.

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