XP or XP Pro 32Bit ?

[Guest]

I am about to build a new computer for recording music and general use. I
have narrowed down the choice of OS to these two. I am leaning towards the XP
Pro IF it will work with most if not all of the XP Home hardware drivers ect.
Vista is totally out as it has no support for my IO recording card. I can
find little to no information about the compatibility. Another question I
have is that I've been lead to believe that XP Home will only work with 2Gig
of memory were as Pro will work with 4Gig. Is this true? Lastly which will be
an easier upgrade to Vista later? The computer will be a Core 2 Duo and I'd
love to go 64Bit but very little on the consumer side is supported for this
platform. With this in mind which OS will make the best use of the processors
speed?

 

[Peter Foldes]

XP Pro

 

[You Know Who ~]

for your purpose I see little difference between XP H and XP Pro, unless you
need to security additions to PRO.
Both recognize 4gig, but might report slightly less than that (for
complicated reasons). I agree that little is supported yet with 64bit. Both
will be upgradeable to Vista, and you might get a coupon for a free upgrade
with either.

 

[crazyal]

forget xp, get vista!!!!

 

[John John]

forget xp, get vista!!!!

He said that Vista has no support for his recording card...

John

 

[Guest]

YKW, Thanks alot for the info. I've been searching for this information and I
can't seem to find it listed anywere. Just tons of reading with a wiff here
and there.

 

[Rock]

I am about to build a new computer for recording music and general use. I
have narrowed down the choice of OS to these two. I am leaning towards the
XP
Pro IF it will work with most if not all of the XP Home hardware drivers
ect.
Vista is totally out as it has no support for my IO recording card. I can
find little to no information about the compatibility. Another question I
have is that I've been lead to believe that XP Home will only work with
2Gig
of memory were as Pro will work with 4Gig. Is this true? Lastly which will
be
an easier upgrade to Vista later? The computer will be a Core 2 Duo and
I'd
love to go 64Bit but very little on the consumer side is supported for
this
platform. With this in mind which OS will make the best use of the
processors
speed?

There is no difference between XP Pro and Home in it's ability to utililize
a Core 2 Duo chip or 4GB RAM. Any 32bit OS, whether XP Home/Pro or Vista,
has a limit of 4GB of RAM. Not all of that RAM will be seen by any 32bit
OS. Some is reserved and used by the hardware so you will see anywhere from
2.7GB to 3.x GB of RAM in the OS. XP Home can use CPU's with multiple Cores
as in the Core 2 Duo chip, but is limited to a single processor. XP Pro is
needed for multiple processors but it doesn't sound like you're using a
multiple processors.

There are differences in the upgrade paths available to Vista from the two
versions of XP. See this link for info.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/buyorupgrade/upgradepaths.mspx

In brief you can do an in place upgrade from XP Home to any of the Vista
versions. For XP Pro you can only do an in place upgrade to Business or
Ultimate. Going to Basic or Home Premium requires a clean (custom) install.

As to which version of XP would be better for you there are some, but few,
software apps which specify they need XP Pro. You need to research if
that's an issue for the apps you will use.

Pro has a few more features than Home, such as an ability to join a domain
based network. Here is a comparison of the two.
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_home_pro.asp

 

[GO]

XP Pro and XP Home are the same OS, so drivers for XP will work with either
version. The professional version is basically the business/corporate
version of the OS and provides more/better support tools. Here's a link to
a quick overview of the differences between the two:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/howtobuy/choosing2.mspx
I am not absolutely certain on this but I believe both versions are capable
of utilizing 4GB RAM.

 

[Tim Slattery]

I am about to build a new computer for recording music and general use. I
have narrowed down the choice of OS to these two. I am leaning towards the XP
Pro IF it will work with most if not all of the XP Home hardware drivers ect.
Vista is totally out as it has no support for my IO recording card. I can
find little to no information about the compatibility. Another question I
have is that I've been lead to believe that XP Home will only work with 2Gig
of memory were as Pro will work with 4Gig. Is this true?

No, not true. There's not very much difference between XP Home and XP
Pro. Pro can join a domain, it can handle multiple processors (but
Home does fine with a single, multi-core or hyperthreaded processor)
and it has some security features that Home doesn't. Both will take
4GB of RAM, but see http://members.cox.net/slatteryt/RAM.html for a
discussion of how much RAM can actually be used in a 32-bit system.

Lastly which will be an easier upgrade to Vista later? The computer
will be a Core 2 Duo and I'd love to go 64Bit but very little on the
consumer side is supported for this platform. With this in mind
which OS will make the best use of the processors speed?

Both should upgrade easily to Vista - or as easily as can be expected,
anyway. I'm not an expert on the multifarious versions of Vista, but I
expect that HP Home and Pro would need to upgrade to different
versions of Vista.

And both will make full use of the processor's speed.

 

[Guest]

Well I guess there is going to be some unused memory on my new machine. I
went with the full 4Gig house. For what I'm going to use this computer for. I
doubt that it will ever really break a swet anyway. I'm sure I'm gonna have
some more questions when I start to put this thing together. Things like the
SATA buss setup and how you set your boot drive and the RAID format. I read
through the manual of my new Motherboard on line today and learned a lot. The
last computer I built was a 486 so it has been awhile. I think I'm more
excited about building it than I am about having a new computer. Everyone has
been a great help and many many thanks to all.