Final Parts Check

[Lemur]

The first build is nerve-wracking and exhilarating and frustrating and, eventually, triumphant. But it's not the best for a machine you want to have up and running smoothly soon.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Which is better - Windows Professional or Windows Home (XP)? I have Windows Home, and I'm used to it, but are there any great advantages Professional offers? I'm not getting Vista yet, not by a long shot.

I'm ordering within the next few days, thanks so much to everyone who's helped me.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

This is the last, final check: Are all these parts compatible?

[Lemur]

Which is better - Windows Professional or Windows Home (XP)?

Windows XP Pro is the only way to o, a I understand it. Xiahou, Husar or Whacker can correct me on this, but I believe Windows XP Home is crippled in ways you start to notice over time. Quite a lot of security features are stripped out of Home, and I think it doesn't utilize multiple cores on the CPU.

I could be getting the specifics wrong, and I could look it all up, but why bother when there are uber-geeks on the board who can correct my lazy assertions?

[drone]

I always run XP Pro. If you have any kind of home network, Pro just works better.

From Wiki

Windows XP Professional offers a number of features unavailable in the Home Edition, including:

* The ability to become part of a Windows Server domain, a group of computers that are remotely managed by one or more central servers.
* A sophisticated access control scheme that allows specific permissions on files to be granted to specific users under normal circumstances. However, users can use tools other than Windows Explorer (like cacls or File Manager), or restart to Safe Mode to modify access control lists.
* Remote Desktop server, which allows a PC be operated by another Windows XP user over a local area network or the Internet.
* Offline Files and Folders, which allow the PC to automatically store a copy of files from another networked computer and work with them while disconnected from the network.
* Encrypting File System, which encrypts files stored on the computer's hard drive so they cannot be read by another user, even with physical access to the storage medium.
* Centralized administration features, including Group Policies, Automatic Software Installation and Maintenance, Roaming User Profiles, and Remote Installation Service (RIS).
* Internet Information Services (IIS), Microsoft's HTTP and FTP Server.
* Support for two physical central processing units (CPU). The number of CPU cores and Hyper-threading capabilities on modern CPUs are considered to be part of a single physical processor, therefore multicore CPUs will work fine under XP Home Edition.