Does windows xp home edition support dual core?

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Guest

I just want to get this cleared up as I'm not totally sure? I was told it
doesn't support more than 1 cpu but that doesn't answer my question
completely?
 
Ok that link explains dual core but still doesnt tell me if home edition xp
does support it? Which is what im trying to find out?
 
Dave Candi said:
I just want to get this cleared up as I'm not totally sure? I was told it
doesn't support more than 1 cpu but that doesn't answer my question
completely?
Click to expand...

Yes it does. It supports one physical chip, which can have multiple cores.
 
Hello,

Here you go
http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/highlights/multicore.mspx

[quote from FAQ section]
Q. A customer wants to upgrade their single-core processor system by
replacing the single-core processor with a multicore processor. If they do
so, will there be an increase in cost for their current software license?

A. No. The customer will incur the cost for one software license per
processor, not per core. So if a customer replaces the single-core processor
on their system with a multicore processor, they will need to have only one
license per processor.
[/quote]

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http://www.bootstrike.com/WinXP/faq.html
Windows XP FAQ
 
jakev87 said:
From everything I've been able to find XP Home can run on a multicore
processor BUT it is not able to fully utilize more than one core.
Click to expand...

Not true. It supports multiple cores in a single processor, but not
multiple processors in a single machinel.
 
Adding a bit to Tim Slattery's post:

See here for a program that can tell you about your CPU
and tell you whether Windows is seeing multiple cores or not:

http://cpuid.com/

There are different versions of hal.dll for single and multi
core. When you install XP you'll get the hal.dll needed for
your CPU, but if you upgrade the hardware from single to
dual core XP won't see the extra cores until you change
hal.dll. Also, if you change the motherboard be sure to
remove the motherboard drivers from XP first and let it use
the generic drivers. If you boot XP to a new board with
foreign drivers you'll probably never get it back. It just
blue-screens. The wrong hal.dll won't cause any such grave
problems, but you'll only get one core's worth of processing
power until you update the hal.dll version.

--
--
|
| From everything I've been able to find XP Home can run on a multicore
| processor BUT it is not able to fully utilize more than one core. As you
| can imagine this is major drawback, and to make matters worse there
| doesn't seem to be a patch or update to fix this problem short of
| upgrading to XP pro or one of the newer versions of windows. I can't
| confirm this info however as it's just from what I've been able to find
| on the subject so far.
|
|
 
jakev87 said:
From everything I've been able to find XP Home can run on a multicore
processor BUT it is not able to fully utilize more than one core. As you
can imagine this is major drawback, and to make matters worse there
doesn't seem to be a patch or update to fix this problem short of
upgrading to XP pro or one of the newer versions of windows. I can't
confirm this info however as it's just from what I've been able to find
on the subject so far.
Click to expand...
If you look under Processors in Device Manager, do you see more than one entry? If you open Task Manager and go to the
Performance tab, you should see a graph for each core (check View, CPU History, One graph for each CPU). If you're
seeing activity on each graph, then XP is using each core. Now, whether or not XP is "fully utilizing" each core, how do
you prove it? I have no idea.
I have a 4-core AMD Phenom II, and if I open the Performance tab (setting the option to "Always on top"), then open 4
different programs, I see the first core jump to maybe 10% utilization. On each subsequent program start, the first core
may spike to 10%, then the other cores spike to 7 or 8%. Tabbing back and forth between the programs causes each core to
spike lightly, but once everything is settled down, each core is within 1 or 2% of each other. As I close each program,
each core drops to nearly 0%.
Whether this proves anything, I don't know, but it seems to me if XP wasn't utilizing multiple cores, only one of the
cores would show heavy activity and the others would be near zero. In my test, all of the cores showed activity within
one or two percent of each other.
Just a "for what it's worth." :-)
 
jakev87 said:
From everything I've been able to find XP Home can run on a multicore
processor BUT it is not able to fully utilize more than one core. As you
can imagine this is major drawback, and to make matters worse there
doesn't seem to be a patch or update to fix this problem short of
upgrading to XP pro or one of the newer versions of windows. I can't
confirm this info however as it's just from what I've been able to find
on the subject so far.
Click to expand...

Do a search on the topic, and see what you can find.

http://incore.net/winxp-multicpu/

If you have the wrong "HAL" in Device Manager (uniprocessor), that
can account for what you're seeing. It doesn't change automatically.

Also, in Task Manager display, there is an option to put the CPU graph
into one pane - check the preferences and make sure you didn't put it
in single pane mode by accident. ("CPU History - One graph, All CPUs").
You want one graph per CPU, to make it more obvious there is
multicore support. And you can't get more than one pane to appear,
unless the HAL is "multiprocessor" type. (Use devmgmt.msc program
and look under the Computer entry to verify it.)

You can see the HAL here is "multiprocessor". It's possible to
do a driver update to change it, if it currently reads "uniprocessor".
As far as I know, WinXP safely lists driver options, if you attempt
to update the "driver" for the Computer entry. I think Win2K makes
it possible to select "bad" choices for that driver update, which can
make a real mess of the OS, so be careful.

http://incore.net/winxp-multicpu/devicemanager.jpg

Paul
 
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