Replacing Computer

[Colin Barnhorst]

You are confusing cores and cpus. Think sockets. XP Home can use one
socket. XP Pro two. It is immaterial how many cores are on the cpu in a
socket. XP Home can use a quad-core cpu just fine. XP Pro can use two of
them. Each cpu being used will list on the Task Manager Performance Tab as
a physical processor and each of the cores on a cpu will list as a logical
processor. XP Home running on a Core 2 Quad will show one physical cpu and
four logical cpus.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I was lead to believe that although XP professional will fully support Dual
and Quad core processors, XP Home, although it will run with them, only with
one core.

Nope. Sorry that's incorrect. What I said above is correct; as long as
it's a single processor, both Home and Professional fully support it.

 

[M.I.5¾]

You are confusing cores and cpus. Think sockets. XP Home can use one
socket. XP Pro two. It is immaterial how many cores are on the cpu in a
socket. XP Home can use a quad-core cpu just fine. XP Pro can use two of
them. Each cpu being used will list on the Task Manager Performance Tab
as a physical processor and each of the cores on a cpu will list as a
logical processor. XP Home running on a Core 2 Quad will show one
physical cpu and four logical cpus.

Then some computer vendors seem to be misinformed as well. The relative few
that still offer Windows XP with a new PC, will not offer XP Home as an
option with a Core 2 processor claiming that they only work with XP
Professional.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Yes, they get confused. Back about three years ago when the first dual core
cpu's hit the consumer market I came across a uk eBay seller who claimed
that the new dual core cpu's ran at 4.8Ghz (2.4 + 2.4 natch). He even did
the math in his item description. And these are the people we buy this
stuff from? Yikes!

 

[Patrick Keenan]

Then some computer vendors seem to be misinformed as well.

At least, their marketing people are....nah, that never happens.

The relative few that still offer Windows XP with a new PC, will not offer
XP Home as an option with a Core 2 processor claiming that they only work
with XP Professional.

MS has made it clear in various materials that XP Home will work fine with
multi-core processors - but just one processor. As noted, they count CPU
sockets, not cores.

http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/highlights/multicore.mspx

-pk