Win xp home vs. pro

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  • Floris
    Senior Member
    • Dec 2001
    • 37767

    #16
    On the quote about pro being more stable.

    All the home versions in my family crash from time to time. Even up to freezes and blue screens or unknown reboots.

    All the pro versions freeze at the max, and that only happened a few times max in the last few years.

    Both home and pro have a same amout of 'program got closed, send email to microsoft' messages


    And for activation, they offer you 30 days before you have to activate the software, you can decide to do this over the internet, or over the phone. If you really don't trust them, use the phone at your office

    When you activate, you don't have to give any personal information. They just check if the key is really legal. Mind, after sp1 you give them more rights then they SHOULD HAVE (bastards) ... so SERIOUSLY tweak your firewall.

    Comment

    • Joe Gronlund
      Senior Member
      • Nov 2001
      • 5789
      • 3.8.x

      #17
      just go with pro, youll be glad you did.
      MCSE, MVP, CCIE
      Microsoft Beta Team

      Comment

      • vBR
        Senior Member
        • Apr 2002
        • 1768

        #18
        I don't like the sound of this think e-mailing Microsoft or whatever it does.
        When and why does it do this?
        How can I stop it?
        What rights do I grant them?
        Can they go snooping around at will?

        Comment

        • Floris
          Senior Member
          • Dec 2001
          • 37767

          #19
          There will be a page presented where you can click on the link to contact microsoft NOW and activate my account. It will ONLY gather the license details for the OS, not for any other program.
          The other choice is to phone ms and handle it by phone. (or not activate: but you need to do so within 30 days)

          Bypassing the activation isn't possible unless you crack it, but if you do that, you break their terms of agreement ofcourse.

          If you want to know what they collect, what you give them the rights for etc, read the terms of agreement during installation or prior to purchase.

          if you disagree, don't install windows xp. either home OR professional for that matter.

          Comment

          • Wayne Luke
            vBulletin Technical Support Lead
            • Aug 2000
            • 73979

            #20
            Originally posted by xiphoid
            Is it worth the money? NO
            You get too much colors for that money, rather then too much OS. I totally disagree with paying SO much for an operating system, even the upgrade costs almost twice the money of the previous versions full version! HORRIBLE PEOPLE.
            Interesting the prices are not like that here...

            Windows XP Home Upgrade - $89.95
            Windows 98SE/ME upgrades - $99.95
            Windows 98SE/ME Full Version - $149.95


            Windows XP Pro Upgrade - $129.95
            Windows 2000 Upgrade - $149.95
            Windows 2000 Full- $249.95

            All of these operating systems can be found on store shelves and those are my local retail prices. Educational and volume discounts can lower the prices as much as 70% as well. I don't know what the full versions of XP would retail for locally because no one has them in stock enough. However, I can't see them being much more than the complimentary OSes, if not less.

            Now compare this to RedHat Linux (Retail) which starts at $129.95 and goes up from there. There is no upgrade version so that is a moot point.

            I would like to add that I have been using Windows XP Home on three machines since March of last year. We never turn our computers off and rarely reboot them. My wife's computer has been restarted less than a dozen times over the last year. Mainly to add hardware or because an application tells her to. My computer gets restarted on average every 3 days but that is because I occasionally go into Linux. The only issue I had with the OS is when Redhat Linux 8.0 crashed and wiped out my NTFS partition in the process so I had to reload Windows XP. The third computer is used only rarely and spends 99.99999% of its time in standby mode. It hasn't been restarted since XP was put on it.
            I haven't had a single blue screen or unexplained reboot either.
            Last edited by Wayne Luke; Wed 26 Feb '03, 7:06am.
            Translations provided by Google.

            Wayne Luke
            The Rabid Badger - a vBulletin Cloud demonstration site.
            vBulletin 5 API

            Comment

            • Ionsurge
              Senior Member
              • Nov 2002
              • 141
              • 3.8.x

              #21
              I have xp pro, has yet to crash, or have something go wrong with it.

              Been around 7 months now.

              Comment

              • CeleronXT
                Senior Member
                • Mar 2002
                • 3217

                #22
                You can entirely disable the error reporting.

                Right click My Computer > Properties > Advanced > Error Reporting > Disable Error Reporting.
                "63,000 bugs in the code, 63,000 bugs, you get 1 whacked with a service pack, now there's 63,005 bugs in the code."
                "Before you critisize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you critisize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes."
                Utopia Software - Current Software: Utopia News Pro (news management system)

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                • JamesUS
                  Senior Member
                  • Aug 2000
                  • 4622

                  #23
                  Just a few random responses to comments from this thread:

                  Error reporting is a feature of both Home and Pro. You can disable it as per CeleronXT's instructions above this post.

                  Largely, Home is fine for personal use. However, if you are going to use a network then you should probably go for Pro. Home lacks the capability to join to Windows network domains and other networking bits.

                  Windows 2000 is NOT more secure than Windows XP. In fact, it is probably the other way around, assuming you haven't installed insecure software on the top of the OS. WinXP is based on the Windows 2000 code, so it cannot possibly be less secure. Both XP and 2k went through security updates through MS's recent bug fixing period (where they did nothing other than fix bugs on windows, particularly XP).

                  I have used both Home and Pro and find them to be largely similar in terms of crashes, reliability, etc. That is only logical though as they are based on the same codebase. My XP Pro laptop crashes occasionally (not the whole laptop but just one windows component like IE) but it's pretty rare. I've had this installed for around a year now and it is pretty low on RAM so this isn't entirely unexpected. My XP Home computer hasn't been installed nearly as long, has more RAM and has not been put through as much stress, and I can't recall any crashes at all. I've never had any blue screens on XP, except once when I installed a driver that was not certified for use on XP. That was easily remedied though.

                  Activation is not a bad thing. You do not have to give any personal details to MS at all. It simply asks you if you want to register (ie tell them who you are etc) as well as activate, or just activate. Personally, I registered as well because there was no reason not to. I trust MS not to sell my email address, and as a legal owner of Windows XP I wanted to make sure I received any relevant news or whatever from them.

                  With the price differences (at least here in the UK), it's not a clear decision which to go for. XP Pro costs £231.47 and Home is £163.32 (full versions). If money is tight and you won't use the Pro features then it is not necessarily worth getting it. That is something that only you can decide.

                  Comment

                  • Matthew Gordon
                    Senior Member
                    • May 2002
                    • 3243
                    • 1.1.x

                    #24
                    Originally posted by CeleronXT
                    You can entirely disable the error reporting.

                    Right click My Computer > Properties > Advanced > Error Reporting > Disable Error Reporting.
                    Thank you for reminding me. I had it disabled on my old computer and forgot where to disable it, heh.

                    Comment

                    • vBR
                      Senior Member
                      • Apr 2002
                      • 1768

                      #25
                      Originally posted by JamesUS
                      With the price differences (at least here in the UK), it's not a clear decision which to go for. XP Pro costs £231.47 and Home is £163.32 (full versions). If money is tight and you won't use the Pro features then it is not necessarily worth getting it. That is something that only you can decide.
                      What about the home OEM and pro OEM at £70.38 & £114.21 respectively?
                      Is there any difference between these and their "full" counterparts?

                      Comment

                      • Joe
                        Senior Member
                        • May 2000
                        • 2435

                        #26
                        OEM does NOT come with support from Microsoft. Retail comes with support. Other then that, the product is the same.
                        Bike Forums.net

                        Comment

                        • vBR
                          Senior Member
                          • Apr 2002
                          • 1768

                          #27
                          Originally posted by Joe
                          OEM does NOT come with support from Microsoft. Retail comes with support. Other then that, the product is the same.
                          LOL, I don't want support from Micro****!
                          I want to cut them out of the equation as much as possible.

                          Comment

                          • centris
                            Senior Member
                            • Jun 2001
                            • 314
                            • 3.8.x

                            #28
                            You might want to take a look at http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=7980 and a few others before you get XP. As for ZA, I would go for one of the Norton package deals Anti-virus and Personal Firewall. I switched to SuSe Linux 6 months ago and it's great.

                            Comment

                            • Joe
                              Senior Member
                              • May 2000
                              • 2435

                              #29
                              Originally posted by vBR
                              LOL, I don't want support from Micro****!
                              I want to cut them out of the equation as much as possible.
                              Thats great, just dont ask me for free support if you have a problem...
                              Bike Forums.net

                              Comment

                              • Vile
                                Senior Member
                                • Jul 2002
                                • 2779
                                • 3.6.x

                                #30
                                Originally posted by Joe
                                Thats great, just dont ask me for free support if you have a problem...
                                It's like I've said before, so many people bash Microsoft, and rant about how MS "sucks" so much, yet they continue to use the products.
                                Webmaster / Administrator
                                www.MegaGames.com
                                www.MGForums.com

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