xp home to xp professional

[Guest]

I have a desk top and laptop model sony vaio that both have windows xp home
sp1. Neither machine has ever been connected to the internet and have no
virus or firewall protection. Both machines are 1.5 years old, used for image
processing only and wordprocessing and printing.
My question is:
Should I upgrade to the xp professional sp2 ?
if yes, when I purchase the upgrade software will this take me from xp home
service sp1 to xp professional sp2, or is there more steps involved ?
Any help would be appreciated......

 

[Maurice N ~ MVP]

Firstly, never connect to the internet without the protection of a firewall and an Antivirus program. period.
Turn on the built-in XP firewall.

If you purchase the XP Pro Upgrade, be certain the box mentions having service pack 2. Most retail stores must be on SP2 by now.
Once the upgrade package is fully setup, your pc would then be on PRO SP2.

Be conservative on the Sony Vaio. Check with their support services to make sure that specific systemboard/processor in the laptop is good to go with SP2.

 

[Ron Martell]

I have a desk top and laptop model sony vaio that both have windows xp home
sp1. Neither machine has ever been connected to the internet and have no
virus or firewall protection. Both machines are 1.5 years old, used for image
processing only and wordprocessing and printing.
My question is:
Should I upgrade to the xp professional sp2 ?
if yes, when I purchase the upgrade software will this take me from xp home
service sp1 to xp professional sp2, or is there more steps involved ?
Any help would be appreciated......

You should only upgrade from Home to Pro if you have a current or
anticipated future need for one of the specific features or functions
which are found in XP Pro but which are not included with XP Home.

Other than these specific items there are no differences between the
two versions, and they are both compiled from the same source code
base. In particular there is zero difference in performance or
stability between the two versions except on a machine with 2 CPUs
installed as only Pro will use the second CPU.

Which version of Windows XP?
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/whichxp.asp
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/howtobuy/choosing2.asp
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_home_pro.asp
One additional difference, which is not specifically mentioned on the
above sites, is that in a peer-to-peer network configuration XP Home
only allows 5 concurrent logins to a shared network resource whereas
XP Pro allows 10.

Hope this explains the situation.

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

In memory of a dear friend Alex Nichol MVP
http://aumha.org/alex.htm