difference between XP pro/Home

[jim532]

What are the differences between XP pro and Home edititions? Also, we plan to implement an Active Directory Domain later this year, and we have a 60 Pc's in a mixed environment of XP pro and XP home edititions, are there going to be any setbacks or problems with this?

 

[JimmyZ1]

not exactly sure, but i think it has something to do with the networking capablities. you probably can't add home edition to a domain.

 

[vacunita]

check this thread, it has a link that might prove usefull.

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1137715.

BTW, XP Home Cannot be joined to a domain, amongst a few other differences.




----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[theo1881]

experienced issues getting my xp home (home pc) to connect to network drives etc when vpn to work - so to avoid problems i would get them all to xp pro.

Laters, phat, headshape

 

[Curiousintel]

Yep go for the pro, the backup prog is also missing from xphome and you most certainly will have trouble with domains and the computer remembering logins for mapped drives.

 

[jim532]

Ok, so now the magix question is.... Can i upgrade to XP Pro without doing a clean install? I have about 25 PC's that have XP home which came from Dell all preconfigured from the factory. That's a pricey clean install considering cost of software and man hours.

 

[vacunita]

You can Upgrade from Home to Pro:

However You have to identify what you are upgrading from and to.

Home no SP
Home with SP1
Home with SP2

to
Pro no SP
Pro SP1
Pro SP2

The steps for upgrading and the success of it depend largely on which verison you are coming from and what version your going to. For example if you try to go from Home SP2 to Pro with no SP, You'll get a message stating the the Operating system currently installed is newer than the one being installed. Becasue of the SP. and the Installer will not let you upgrade. You have to roll back the SP's.

The other thing is whether or not you intend to preserve files and installed programs or you wish to start clean with absolutely nothing.

If all the machines are DELL of the same type with the same components you can Setup 1 machine and then ghost the machine to every other Pc bypassing most of the setup process and configuring.

NOTE: machines must be identical, CPU, Motherboard, etc.. must match for the install to succeed.
Once all machines are imaged, you can go and set the individual Serial Nubers for each to maintain everything legal.


----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[Rick998]

IMHO you should never do an upgrade. I believe it's always preferable to do a clean install.

In your situation I would suggest you do a clean install of XP Pro SP2 (if necessary, by slipstreaming SP2 into a Volume License edition of XP Pro) on one of the PC's then re-image the other 24 PC's from it using 'Symantec Ghost' or 'Acronis True Image'.

 

[jim532]

none of the machines are identical because they were purchased at different times. But the machines with XP home all have SP2. So now if i'm going from Home SP2 to Pro SP2 do i purchase upgrades or full versions of XP pro w/SP2? Also since preserving files and programs installed is an issue, I would use Acronis to take a dive image before the upgrade in case something goes wrong, then i can always just revert back to the original OS till a later date. I don't like doing upgrades either, but in this case wiping the drive clean and reinstalling all the different apps may take just way too long

 

[cdogg]

While I agree that a clean install is the preferred method, there are situations where an upgrade makes more sense (and this is one of them). Upgrading from Windows 2000 or XP Home is not as bad as older versions of Windows, because the OS is already NT 5.0 or later. You're not making a whole lot of changes here...

As for what type of CD you should get, I would read over this FAQ from bcastner:
faq779-4004

It doesn't hurt to contact Microsoft by phone for licensing questions.

Also, here's a good comparison chart between Home and Pro:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/howtobuy/choosing2.mspx

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[ChekTrac]

I have done an upgrade on a laptop from XP Home SP2 to Pro SP2 and this went fine (Toshiba Hardware)
I then attempted to do an upgrade on an HP Pavillion (this week) from XP Home SP2 to Pro SP2 and it FAILED!!!

I ended up haveing to do a system restore to get the machine back up and running. They LOST ALL OF THEIR PROGRAMS ETC. Luckily I had saved their document etc.

I contacted HP in regards, and they had noted that an Upgrade from XP HOME to XPPRO is NOT RECOMMENDED. They stated that bacause of the bundled software NOT to do it EVER!!

I would contact DELL, as I have worked on DELL's before also and they cause nothing but problems, becaude of the bundled software.

Have you ever had a HDD failure.??
When you restore, it isn't like using normal XP disks. It is Bundled software.

Just a warning, that may help, as doing an upgrade from Home to Pro caused me a whole lot of grief

 

[cdogg]

Yeah, it might not even be the bundled software, per se, but instead might be the fact that the OEM license of the OS is tied to the BIOS. Therefore when you do an upgrade, you are actually using a new license, of which the bundled software is not compatible to use in some situations (depending on the manufacturer).

Just a guess anyway...

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884