XP Home vs. XP Media Center vs. XP Pro

[QuickLearner]

I'm about to buy a new desktop. For online poker and Pokertracker is there one preferred OS or will all of them work fine?

I won't be networking the PC (in the workplace environment sense), so I expect that XP Pro isn't needed. The Media Center is attractive, but I don't know if the added functionality will make the OS more fragile.. Should I stick to XP Home? Thanks for helping.

[MrMoo]

XP home is fine if you won't be networking. Also, I recently read that someone came up with a way to "upgrade" XP Home to XP full by changing a file or something similar. Can't remember where I read it but google search would probably give you the answer.

[stabn]

This is illegal.

[stabn]

Either will work fine for your needs. I have media center edition at home and run party/stars/poker tracker/GT+ etc. It just depends on whether or not you want the media center features or not (and most PC's with media center are going to be a little more expensive because they have tuners, etc.)

[LetYouDown]

XP Home is my 2nd least favorite operating system to Windows ME. I'd go with Pro all day. Media Center has a lot of issues with DRM (Digital Rights Management) from what I've heard. Otherwise, I'd be interested.

[stabn]

[ QUOTE ]
XP Home is my 2nd least favorite operating system to Windows ME. I'd go with Pro all day. Media Center has a lot of issues with DRM (Digital Rights Management) from what I've heard. Otherwise, I'd be interested.

[/ QUOTE ]

1) What's wrong with Home edition?
2) Why is whatever is wrong with it so bad you mention it in the same post as ME?

[LetYouDown]

Networking is terrible. It seems slower to me than XP Pro, significantly. From what I recall it doesn't support NTFS (correct if I'm wrong) so you can't set permissions on folders/files. I believe you can't lock your workstation. Device support didn't seem nearly as good. I lasted about a week with it.

[stabn]

I'll go through these one by one.
[ QUOTE ]
Networking is terrible.

[/ QUOTE ]
While i'm no a fan of simple file sharing it really isn't intended for large networks or more than simply sharing a few documents in a home setup. All other networking components are the same.
[ QUOTE ]
It seems slower to me than XP Pro, significantly.

[/ QUOTE ]
This is impossible. The only thing that could cause a speed difference is having multiple users signed in with fast user switching and having all those different users loading enough programs that you are having memory issues. This would be the asme problem you'd have opening that many programs with one user. If you had themes running on one and not the other that could cause a small slowdown as well, but there is nothing onherently slower with HE than PRO.

[ QUOTE ]
From what I recall it doesn't support NTFS (correct if I'm wrong) so you can't set permissions on folders/files.


[/ QUOTE ]

This is incorrect. It does support NTFS and installs with NTFS by default. It doesn't have the file/folder permission ACLS in the UI. There are still base NTFS ACLS applied to the system, you just can't modify them (except in safe mode IIRC).

[ QUOTE ]
I believe you can't lock your workstation.

[/ QUOTE ]
This is semi-correct. Simply hit logout and then switch user to bring up the logon UI and it will have the same effect as locking locking it. FWIW, HE is not a 'workstation' OS, it is a home OS, i definitely agree that being able to CTRL_ALT_DEL to lock it is better, but you can still get basically the same functionality.

[ QUOTE ]

Device support didn't seem nearly as good.


[/ QUOTE ]
Again, his is impossible. Any device that works on PRO will work on HE.

[ QUOTE ]

I lasted about a week with it.


[/ QUOTE ]

If you needed NTFS ACLS/being able to join to a domain/being able to remote desktop into the machine, you should have gotten PRO in the first place. Any user who doesn't need these specific things, or one of the few other things listen by Microsoft as being disabled in HE will have no problem with HE that PRO would solve.

[QuickLearner]

Thanks for the replies, everyone. I've decided to go with XP Media Center.