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 Introduction Facts & Figures Home & Pro Differences Behind the New Wheel Folders & Special Folders Looking at 'My Pictures' Windows Media Player 8 Internet Explorer 6.0 Functional Improvements Personal Firewall Remote Assistance Backup & Restore Product Activation Hardware and Setup Will Your Programs Run? Networkability Beta Conclusions |
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Home and Pro Differences The best answer we've gotten so far about the differences between Home and Pro comes from an XP reviewer's document dated February 2001. The features exclusive to the Pro version fall into these categories: Business-class security, corporate management (including features that support "IntelliMirror" services, which require a server component), networking, file system, user interface, advanced and power-user features, and 64-bit architecture. The list of specific Pro-only features is long, but suffice it to say most home, small business, and even medium-size business users aren't going to give a hoot about them. Large corporations, though, are almost certainly going to want at least some of the Pro features, and they will in most cases opt for that version. That's the good news. The bad news is that there's a small group of features exclusive to the Pro edition that power users are going to be steamed about. For example, you need the Pro version to use the Multiple Monitors (MultiMon) feature that lets you share a desktop between two or more monitors. (That feature is available, and in fact was introduced, in Windows 98.) The Microsoft Fax services do not come with the Home edition either. Some network protocols and services are excluded from the Home edition, including Simple TCP/IP (the standard TCP/IP stack is included) and the Client Service for NetWare. Some of the high-end power features that are dependent on the NTFS file system will only appear in the Pro version, such as Automatic System Recovery, the new Backup utility, the file system encryption, and content indexing. The default file system for the Home edition is NTFS, whereas the Pro version lets you choose to keep FAT32 or another file system instead of installing NTFS. That seems odd, since the vast majority of Windows in the home are using the FAT or FAT32 file systems. (This also may only be on new PCs.)
Long and short, if you want to take full advantage of Windows XP, you're going to want the more expensive Professional version A Word About Upgrades When Will It Be Out? Predicting software development cycles is tricky business, but if all goes according to Microsoft's plan, expect RC1 by early June, RC2 by early July, and a code lock-down in late July or early August. In that scenario, Windows XP could be on store shelves by around mid to late September and new Windows XP PCs could arrive three to four weeks earlier. Of course, that timing is based on Microsoft not hitting any major bumps along the way. Lately there are indications that Microsoft isn't as confident as it once was of delivering the product in September. And it now seems unlikely that it will finish the product in time to sell retail copies of Windows in time for the Back-to-School selling season, although it's still possible that new PCs running Windows XP will arrive at the end of August. There's even talk that Microsoft could postpone the launch of Windows XP until early 2002. The truth is, no one really knows when Windows XP will "ship." Note: Since this story was published, Microsoft announced that Windows XP will go on sale Thursday October 25, 2001. |
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