There are more differences than just the multiprocessor support. You also loose Multi-monitor support Win98SE gave us multimonitors XP Home takes it away. $60 to $70 gets you a Matrox G450 dual head with 32MB DDR RAM. An Invidia dual head is around $350. Monitors are about $150 for 17 inch models so this should be a feature high on a lot of people's list. The excerpt below is from various sources: When you look at Windows XP Home and Professional Editions head-to-head, the following appear to be the primary differences (outside of cost considerations): Remote Desktop Offline Files and Folders Encrypting File System Granular Access Control Ability to join a Windows NT or Windows 2000 domain Support for Group Policy and Roaming Profiles Software Installation and Maintenance Installation using Remote Installation Services (RIS) Multi-language support Multiprocessor support Multiple Monitors support Dynamic disks Upgrade from Windows NT/Windows 2000 Advanced networking support All of these features are supported by Windows XP Professional and none of them is supported by Windows XP Home Edition. Remote Desktop allows you to make your desktop computer a Terminal Server. This is very handy if you move from computer to computer and occasionally need to access your primary desktop from another machine. Remote Desktop is also nice when you're on the road, as you can connect to your machine over a VPN connection from a remote location. Offline files and folders allow you to store the contents of a network share on the local disk. This feature isn't much use for permanently connected desktops, but its great if you travel with a laptop. When you plug the laptop back into the network, the files changed on the laptop are automatically synchronized so that the files in the network share are up to date. The Encrypting Files System (EFS) allows you to encrypt files so that unauthorized users cannot view their contents. This is helpful in a high security or a laptop environment. EFS depends on the NTFS file system. Both Windows XP Home and Professional support the NTFS file system, but EFS is disabled on XP Home. EFS is best used on laptop computers. If you don't use XP on laptops, you might not consider this a must-have feature. The NTFS file system allows you to assign specific permissions on files and folders. Windows XP Professional allows you to assign the full range of NTFS permissions to files and folders. Windows XP Home allows you to assign NTFS permissions to files and folders, but the range of permissions is limited. Instead of granular NTFS based access controls, Windows XP Home implements something called "Simple File Sharing". The Simple File Sharing scheme allows you to assign files and folders a predefined level of access. The predefined levels are defined in this Knowledge Base article: http://www.winxpnews.com/rd/rd.cfm?id=011121ED-AccessLevel XP Home computers cannot join Windows NT/2000 domains. Windows NT or 2000 domain features such as Group Policy, Software Installation and Maintenance and roaming profiles are not available for XP Home computers. The Remote Installation Service (RIS) allows you to install Windows 2000 or Windows XP Professional over the network on a machine with no operating system. RIS depends on an Active Directory domain. If your shop doesn't use the domain model, then XP Home might fill the bill. Multi-language support allows you to change the language used is various dialog boxes and applications "on the fly". This is a helpful feature is multinational corporations, but is probably not something you require if you work in one language exclusively. Multiprocessor and multiple monitor hard support in Windows XP Professional allows you use up to two processors and 10 monitors. XP Home allows only a single processor and monitor. The updated Windows NT backup program is included with XP Professional and XP Home. This backup program is a major update to the old ntbackup utility. The new backup program allows you to back up to virtually any media, such as local and remote disks, tape, floppy or CD-R. Dynamic Disks allow you to create advanced Windows XP volumes, such as spanned or striped volumes. Windows XP Home does not support Dynamic Disks and therefore you are limited to only simple volumes. Spanned volumes allow you to extend the size of partitions (called volumes on Dynamic Disks) while striped volumes provide an extra measure of disk performance. Neither XP Professional nor Home supports fault tolerant volumes (such as software-based RAID 5). If you are already running Windows NT or Windows 2000, your only upgrade option is to XP Professional. You will not be able to upgrade to XP Home. XP Home edition does not support advanced some networking features. Networking components not supported by XP Home include IPSec, Client Services for NetWare (CSNW) and Network Monitor. IPSec encrypts data moving over the network and is important in high security and VPN environments. CSNW is only of use if you run a Novell NetWare network and Network Monitor is a TCP/IP network "sniffer" that allows you to capture packets for troubleshooting network related problems. Looking at these features as a whole, Windows XP Home fits the needs of home users and small companies that use their computers in a non-networked or in a network workgroup environment. Windows XP Professional is the best choice for companies that use Windows NT or Windows 2000 domains, require a higher level of security, and those that have laptop users that need to secure local files and need access to network file share resources when connected and disconnected from the network.

You really did your homework, thanks for all the info. Sharen

Attached Link: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/default.asp

Sharen, Let's boil this down to some simple language here. There are two major areas or distinctions that would help someone make a choice between Windows XP Home and Professional Editions 1.) For advanced network-related features, XP Professional is the choice. 2.) For dual processors and dual (mutiple) monitors, XP Professional is the choice. Further clarification: The average home user doesn't need or care about most of those advanced network features.... Or if they wanted some of them, they might be replaced by utilities such as Pretty Good Privacy, whatever. The considerations that might prompt some "graphics people" to choose XP Professional: 1.) Dual Processor support 2.) Multiple monitor support I have a Home Network, and it works just find with my wife's Windows ME computer. My computer has an on-board video chip that does nicely till I can afford a "new computer with all the bells and whistles." If I were to think about dual monitors, I'd need to spend maybe $300 for all that hardware, then I'd need a different computer desk. Tnen I'd need to spend the extra $100 to buy XP Professional. After all that is done, I doubt we have room in our tiny office for two monitors working together. In the long run it's cheaper for me to save $100 by buying Windows XP Home Edition. By the way, Microsoft is very good about describing all the differences between XP Home and Professional Editions. All the details you shared are very clearly described on their site.

Attached Link: http://groups.google.com/groups?q=%22windows+xp+home%22+%2B%22dual+monitor%22&hl=en&btnG=Google+Sea

As much as it hurts me to say something good about microsoft, but XP Home should support multiple monitors. See link [google]

Attached Link: http://www.microsoft.com/WINDOWSXP/home/howtobuy/choosing2.asp

Here is a link [microsoft] to an comparsion between XP Home and XP Pro. Later this day I will buy a new PC. Then I can experience the joy of WinXP Home. :P Well anything is better then ME.

Hi, You didn't really think MS were going to give you something for nothing did you? :) A monopoly is as a monopoly does, you want to play, you've got to pay, "so mote it be" That said, Xp is fairly slick, (pro not home) It's not crash proof, a collegue installed it to his laptop over the weekend and it's died twice already, (real dead, re-install required) and I've had it appologize for the inconvenience :) when a program snuffed it, and had to put out of it's misery. The aquarium is cool, but only works for one user (the administrator) the rest get one fish and a banner add... It also works a lot faster if you turn off all the eye candy, which was the first thing I did when I logged in :) Who the hell wants a start menu that takes up a 5th of the available screen? I can appreciate that it's a fairly slick OS, but it's a bloddy huge install, 1.4Gb compared to 400Mb for 98SE although word has it that it's networking support is very good, atleast once you get past the part where it ask you if you want to go online to download drivers fro your ISDN box... Yup that's right, the same drivers you need to install frist to even get a dial tone :) later jb

Usually when we have problems with a new operating system install it's due to operator-related errors. That can include mistakes by the computer user, or out-of-date software or hardware. How many people never bother to update their hardware drivers? Too often the hardware manufacturers either dump a product or go out of business. When you install a new operating system over a previous operating system, you inherit any problems you may have had before. I always recommend backing up any important files (that should be done daily any way), wiping the hard drive, and reinstalling from scratch. Of course one needs to be sure he/she has all software and hardware updates first. I've followed this policy and have had almost no problems with Windows XP, ME, or 98

XP Home does support two monitors ... I'm using it that way.

dmtyler well the proof is in the pudding. I'm sitting on win2K for just a bit longer but was suprised to see Microsoft saying it isn't supported. i checked to see if my material was old but i don't think that's the case. perhaps there is a difference between native OS support and 3rd party support. which graphics card are you using?

At the time I added the second monitor I couldn't find any decent dual-monitor cards locally. My Sony VAIO Desktop came with an AGP card (Intel 82810 is all it says in Device Manager). I added a second PCI card (ATI Rage 128 Pro) for the second monitor. Works like a champ! Denise

I happen to have an extra PCI card lying around (and an on-baord AGP video chip)... If I had a second monitor I could reasily try it.

the monitors don't have to be the same size but it helps. I have my poser ui buttons set so that I can spread my workspace over the two monitors then when i hit my ui button it puts all the tools in the right monitor and the workspace on the left monitor. Very nice. Also works well for space hogs like photoshop where you have all the floating toolbars. Some applications refuse to be spread out this way.

Attached Link: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/evaluation/features.asp

it says that it will support the dual head cards. It's good to hear some are using two physical monitor cards.

By jove, you're right. I've made it easier for others, and copied and pasted the relevant text from the Microsoft Web site: "DualView allows two monitors to host the Windows desktop while being driven off of a single display adapter. In the case of laptop computers this could be the internal LCD display as well as an external monitor. For desktops there are a variety of high-end display adapters that will support this functionality."

I will stick with win 2000 pro for now I think. I really like it and never a crash. I would like to hear more about XP pro though, for the future. Like, if I did switch (after a few updates from MS) has it shown to be an easy switch (compatible) for existing win 2000 pro software/hardware (scanner, printer etc...) or does one have to download new drivers etc... or maybe find that there are none and so, can't switch over? Thanks :)

Ron, Nope! This is on a HP omnibook 900b laptop with all the latest drivers, (via the option to logon to MS during the install to update) and all three times were "clean" installs. We also do this for a living, so it's not unheard of that we might know what we're doing :P I've got all the latest drivers for every OS I've used, (more of a problem with Linux/UNIX, where you have to compile the stuff yourself, but not insurmountable :) I think that by and large Xp works well, especially given the wide range of flaky crap it has to work with, it's just a shame they couldn't get it right in in 1995, but I guess they needed/wanted to see both what thier customers wanted and what the market would bare before they stepped up to the plate with thier "good stuff" right? :) later jb