Which XP to Choose? (-)

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I’m about to upgrade to XP in the next days, and wondered if there was a version / release I should prefer over others (or discard). I recall, for example, Woody recommending Office 2000 SR-1 some time ago (haven’t got round to reading the last issues).
This is a similar question put in Windows terms .

I’ll really appreciate any input based either in your personal experience or in comments you might have heard / read about. Thank you in advance.

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It will depend to an extent on what environment you will be working in – home/office/domain etc.

Here is a starter:
Which Edition Is Right for You?

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Leif and SMBP:

Thank you VERY much for the info!!!
I’ve almost made up my mind in favor of the Home Ed, but I’ll do a very careful reading of all the articles before making the final decision.

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If you need to setup other users to share the PC, I would go for Pro. File sharing and security are crippled in the Home version. I was misled into buying Home by the story that the extra features in Pro were needed only if I was going to setup a domain network.

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Having seen on Software Finds the way you enjoy nuances of a lot of the music programs, I think that having the Microsoft Management Console, and the ability to tweak with it and Group Policy as far as interfacing with the registry from its gui off/on, and the ability to impact multiple machines with GP, that you don’t have in Home would be one feature alone that you will want. In addition, networking advantages, encryption, two microprocessors, ect. might be attractive to you.

See:
XP Comparison Guide
Winsupersite Comparison
Tech TV Home v. Pro with chart
Home v. Pro Chart

Added later:[/size]

Windows XP Pro Features
Evaluate Windows XP Pro
Which XP Best?

SMBP

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Hi people,

Thank you very much for the overwhelming response

Cowboy, Tim and SMBP: Although I somehow consider myself a power user as compared to common ‘users’ (I mean no offense), I’m not a programmer and don’t make a living with computers. Let’s say I’m a big computers fan .
What I can tell so far is:
– I have a single PC and that ain’t gonna change in the short/medium term. Neither will it in the long term from what I can say . So the networking features wouldn’t be of much use.
– I do find EFS encryption really enticing, because it seems the kind of folder-protection stuff I’d been looking for for so long. However, I can manage with PGP & PGP Disk, so this isn’t the kind of feature I cannot do without (provided my ver. of PGP -PGP 6.0.2i- works in XP, which remains to be seen).
– As for Music & Media files, I have everything I need (BTW, the MP3 volume normalizer kicked butt!). I’ve heard WMPlayer XP is a great improvement over previous versions’, but I’ll still have it in the Home Ed. I really don’t think I’ll need further control over media (though gosh, how I’d like it).

That said, I’ll now read SMBP’s links and even when they seemed to make me decide towards Home, I can’t guarantee that a last-minute thought won’t take over. Things look way different in the shelves .

I have one more question: I’ll run XP on a Pent III 550 Mhz, 128 MB RAM. I believe this amount of RAM won’t suffice, so I’m thinking about upgrading to 256 MB. Will this be ok? What do you think?

To give you an idea, I need the following applications running smoothly, swiftly and all at the same time:
– Powerdesk (kinda Windows Explorer)
– Outlook 2K
– Word 2K
– Excel 2K
– Winamp
– Windows Media Player
– Internet Explorer
– AVG Antivirus (in the Tray)
– Webshots (in the Tray)
– ePrompter (in the Tray, though this is a real light one)
– Zone Alarm
– ICQ
– Go!Zilla
– Babylon Translator (the good ol’ blue ver.)
– Any commonplace imaging software, such as PhotoEd or Irfanview, but NOT the resource hog kind (PhotoPlus for example, I believe that PSP & Corel also belong to this category).
– Add the burden of Win XP itself.

And that’s about it. Not that I’ll be running all these apps 7×24, but I want my machine to perform smoothly even on these occasions. If you feel that 256 MB will fall short, feel free to suggest another number.

Again, thanks for all your time!!

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You should be fine with 256MB, and if you want to over-clock,, and your mobo wants to let you, go for it. There are a number of decent links here, and there is tons of information and a lot of enthusiasm for doing it. RAM is fortunately reasonably cheap these days, and if you got more demanding programs you could quickly add. Look over the features and get what makes you happy. WMP9 is not specific to XP and can go back to 98SE.

SMBP

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Thanks SMBP, sure got enough links! . I’ll do some reading about this overclocking stuff

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The July issue of Maximum PC has a cover story on Overclocking that’s pretty good, and there is overclockers.com.

SMBP

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Diegol–

In addition to Leif’s link, I also like this Windows XP Home or Pro thread especially Kaplinb’s very complete list in Post 192802 from this oldie but goodie lounge thread on page 44 of the XP threads. It’s one of the most indepth comparisons I’ve been able to find.

SMBP

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Diego, If I were you, I would definitively go for XP Pro. Home versions are always limited for power users like you, and the way I see it Corp. versions are always somewhat “tidier”…. Plus, I can loan you some CDs that would be usefull for XP.
As for the PD, I have it running on a P3 600 with 256 and it works just great! I would surely recommend upgrading to 256. BTW, Office XP works great too, but always keep a copy of the installation disk, or you will lose tons of functions not installed the first time (language spelling, dictation, etc… things I KNOW you will like to try…).
Hope it helped!! Have a good one, friend!

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Thanks Baruguru!!! I know your user profile pretty much matches mine, so there’s little else to add.
When I’m done reading, I’ll give XP Pro the extra consideration it’s earned via Loungers’ suggestions.

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Hi Cowboy,

I’m not very literate in hardware stuff… I have a manual that came with the machine that reads:
“PC 100 Systemboard
Slot 1/Socket 370
M748 LMRT User’s Manual”
I believe this might be the Motherboard’s manual. As for the chipset, I’d never heard of it before… I read thru this Manual’s TOC but couldn’t find a similar word. How can I obtain this information?

Is it possible that overclocking the machine can carry bad consequences (like processor overheating)?
I believe I might have heard about something like this some time ago, but I’m not sure… kinda rings me a bell…

Thank you

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if your not comfortable with this, DO NOT TRY it. Find someone who knows how do do this.

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Glad that you said it Cowboy. I don’t even know what a jumper is. I can’t tell whether I’m using slot 1 or 370. I think I can manage to survive the BIOS Setup, but that’s as much as I can do. I’ll tell you what:
1) I’ll read all the related information (didn’t have the time yet because I’m doing up my house and even finding a telephone line to plug my PC to is a real pain)
2) I’ll install XP and twitch it a little to get used to it
3) I’ll upgrade the RAM
4) I’ll get a friend not so useless when it comes to dealing with the hardware.
5) If this is not enough, I’ll get back to you.

Thank you a lot for your couching

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