Windows XP home or XP pro
Which one is right for you?

The wonderful program Windows XP comes in two flavors, home edition and professional edition. With these 2 programs, the first thing you will notice is the price tag. XP home costs 100 dollars for the update CD, or 200 dollars for the entire full install. Professional on the other hand, costs 200 for the upgrade or 300 for the full installation.

The bang that is offered for the extra XP professional cost offers little to no interest to the average home user. Each version of XP has its own offers, all depending on what you the user are wishing to accomplish. We will go over the key features, and help you determine which one is right for you.

Remote desktop

Remote control of your Windows XP pro machine is gained with the bundled remote desktop client software. This software can be installed on any machine with Windows 95 or newer, and allows you to see and interact with your remote desktop within a window on the local machine. This also gives you the ability to edit local files with remote applications, and also allows the remote applications to access local peripherals.

Microsoft says that the remote desktop works well even with the speeds of a dialup connection, simply because mouse clicks, keyboard strokes, and display information are the only things transmitted over the Internet. There are other users that have found remote desktop to be very sluggish on slower connections, and would tell you to have a fast connection in order to prevent rage when using this program.

Support of dual processors

If you currently have two processors, you will need to shell out the extra money and purchase Windows XP professional. The home edition of XP doesn’t support a dual processor system. This reason alone has been the reason many people have went ahead and purchased the professional edition.

Network shares viewed offline

Windows XP professional can be set up to automatically cache specified network shares at logon for availability offline. This isn’t considered the most useful feature for the home user, but it is great however for business travelers who have laptops.

Encrypting File Support (EFS)

The professional edition of XP boasts EFS, a feature that was first included with Windows 2000. XP professional can encrypt folders and files with a random and unique encryption key. This is an awesome feature for theft prone laptops with personal and sensitive information, but a not needed feature for the home user who is already behind the standard XP firewall.