New laptop Which Vesion of Windows XP

lozen · #1 09-16-2005, 10:24 AM

So any suggestions i am buying anew Dell 9300 Laptop
My choices are

Windows XP home
Windows XP Media
Windows XP Pro

Is Pro that much better?

BBill · #2 09-16-2005, 11:36 AM

If the cost difference is not that much I'd get Pro or MCE (Media)
I've used XP home for a long time, I just put together a PC and got XP pro becasue it was only 10.00 more than XP home.
I think the drive support is better in XP pro. With XP home to run 2 monitors I had to get a dual-output video card, I think in PRO you can just add a video card like you could in win98.

MCE (Media Center Edition) has support for DVR, TV-Tuner cards and you can use a remote control to run your pc.

TheTROLL · #3 09-16-2005, 12:28 PM

Full list of differences here . No difference in using multiple monitors/video cards. If you won't use it in a business network (domain) environment, you're very unlikely to care about the differences.

MyMindIsGoing · #4 09-16-2005, 01:36 PM

[ QUOTE ]
MCE (Media Center Edition) has support for DVR, TV-Tuner cards and you can use a remote control to run your pc.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow, that can be done in windows 2000 too...

lozen · #5 09-16-2005, 02:54 PM

Thanks

BBill · #6 09-17-2005, 11:42 AM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
MCE (Media Center Edition) has support for DVR, TV-Tuner cards and you can use a remote control to run your pc.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow, that can be done in windows 2000 too...

[/ QUOTE ]

yeah I think the MCE revision is just a marketing stratagy to sell what is already available.

BBill · #7 09-17-2005, 11:49 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Full list of differences here . No difference in using multiple monitors/video cards. If you won't use it in a business network (domain) environment, you're very unlikely to care about the differences.

[/ QUOTE ]

ok- if somebody gets XP home and has difficulty getting multiple monitors / video cards to work I promise I won't say "I told you so"

but seriously multiple monitor support was a last minute addition to XP home when it was first released. MS did not think any home users would have a requirement for such a thing then they found out differently.
The Multi-Monitor support in XP home blows.
If you happen to get the right combination of video cards it fine but for instance the two video cards I had in my computer running win98 were not compatible with XP home - I had to get a dual card (about 100.00 us)

MyMindIsGoing · #8 09-17-2005, 12:39 PM

"but seriously multiple monitor support was a last minute addition to XP home when it was first released."

eh, 2000 can do that [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

TheTROLL · #9 09-17-2005, 12:53 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Full list of differences here . No difference in using multiple monitors/video cards. If you won't use it in a business network (domain) environment, you're very unlikely to care about the differences.

[/ QUOTE ]

ok- if somebody gets XP home and has difficulty getting multiple monitors / video cards to work I promise I won't say "I told you so"

but seriously multiple monitor support was a last minute addition to XP home when it was first released. MS did not think any home users would have a requirement for such a thing then they found out differently.
The Multi-Monitor support in XP home blows.
If you happen to get the right combination of video cards it fine but for instance the two video cards I had in my computer running win98 were not compatible with XP home - I had to get a dual card (about 100.00 us)

[/ QUOTE ]

It sounds like you might be extrapolating from a rather small sample size here. Did you have a different experience running XP Pro on the same kit?

BBill · #10 09-17-2005, 01:13 PM

I actually just got XP Pro last week running on my primary PC. Admittedly I can not say from personal experience that DM support will not work on many PCs. I will say that when I got XP home a few years ago and upgraded my PC from 98 the dual monitor wasn’t happening.

I read all the PC tech help forums I could and put together the facts I have stated above. It could be a conspiracy to get people to get the more expensive OS but I doubt it.
The article you posted about the differences is very vague on the real tech concerns, it was written for a very non-tech user.

As far as dual monitor support, XP-Pro supports up to 10 monitors (I could find the specs but this is again from memory) XP home supports 3 maximum I believe.
They are different operating systems as far as support for hardware is concerned IMO.