posted
Does anybody know what the differences are between XP Pro and Home versions?
I've read the MS claims, but what I want to know is if any of those extra features matter on a laptop that will probably be connected to a variety of wireless and wired LANs strictly to get IP connectivity to the Net (so no domain logins are needed). At home we'll likely share a few folders and/or printers, but not much more.
Dagonee P.S., non-Windows isn't really an option.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Get a Mac and run Virtual PC with both versions. And OS/2, Linux, FreeBSD, and FreeDOS while we're at it.
edit: and oh silly me, this is fugu (betcha guessed that ). Since I'm currently crashing at Avadaru's place while visiting Baton Rouge our logins sometimes cross accidentally.
posted
Oh, and I'd go with Pro. Its just always seemed easier to handle networking problems in Pro, though I'd have a hard time pinning down any particular differences. This is from 3 months of doing over the phone tech support for SBC DSL customer self-installs -- the sort of position where half the people calling in seem to have old Compaq computers + windows ME, the perfect combination for an unsolvable headache.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Yeah, that's why I got Pro when I ordered my laptop for law school, and it was my first thought for Eve's. The problem is that there's a perfect laptop for her except it doesn't come with Pro. I'd pay the upgrade fee, but the option's not available.
posted
Thanks for the link, raventh1. That's much better than the lists I've found on the MS sites.
fugu, the laptop is available in set configurations, not individually customizable. The version with Pro comes with a lot of absolutely useless features.
I'm still not set on this model, but I've heard good things about it and it has the exact feature set we need.
posted
Ouch, I was just looking at MS's prices, and its $200 to upgrade from Home to Pro. That's pretty steep.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
From MS directly its $299 to purchase new, or $199 to purchase an upgrade edition which upgrades from many previous versions of windows, including Home. I could find no reference to a discounted Home-only upgrade.
posted
I'd bet the high price point is largely to make still-quite high prices offered for multiple computer licensing seem more reasonable, as MS (correctly) expects most people to just buy a new computer (which means they're effectively buying at the much lower OEM price from MS's perspective).
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
I just got an extra copy of XP-Pro for $35 from the Microsoft Company Store. I was getting it for my brother, but it looks like he is going to get a whole new machine. I could ship one to you.
Posts: 1132 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
Just found out a student edition of Windows XP Pro upgrade is only $99 - so I'm willing to risk the $20 difference if we find out Home doesn't work.
Thanks for the info, everybody. I still would prefer Pro, but you've made me feel better that it might not be needed.
posted
Oh, and check if your uni has a deal with MS. Here we can get windows for $10 or $20 or so (I forget exactly how much).
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
That is the Uni bookstore deal. If I were working for them and going to use the computer on that, I could get access to the site license, I think, which is probably what the $10 rate applies to.
Edit: Some universities bought site licenses that covered students in order to encourage upgrading for security reasons.
posted
Nope, this is a site license which includes all students and other associated people getting copies for their home computers. Has to do with being on a 35k student campus of one of the most wired universities in the country.
Perhaps even better is our Red Hat Enterprise Linux site license we just picked up -- I (or any other student) get RHEL Advanced Server (or any other form of RHEL I want) for free (or the price of the disk copying if I don't burn it myself), to use in any way I want, and that includes tech support (if the on campus unix systems and support group can't answer it, they have on call tech support at Red Hat as part of the deal).
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Oh, and we've got site licenses for Office, and for Visual Studio, and lots of other stuff (including Macromedia's stuff and Adobe's stuff). Some of the stuff fewer people will want has higher prices to discourage people buying unless they need it, but those prices are, in comparison to the original prices, strictly nominal. The most expensive thing is the entire Adobe suite for $200.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Oh, and I got the Macromedia suite for $100.
As for the Red Hat bit, sort of. They don't distribute their software binaries except to those purchasing it (with at least minimal support), and that starts at $1499 for AS. However, anyone purchasing AS can make as many copies for use as they want, I do believe, they just only get support (and Red Hat tested and certified software updates) on the one, normally.
In our case, with our educational site license (and we're the first place to get an educational site license, anywhere, this is something new RH's trying), we get unlimited phone incidents and all sorts of other goodies. We can't contact support directly, only our own USS group can, though. However, that group itself is insanely knowledgable.
Oooh, and we get a local satellite server for the Red Hat Network software updates, which means our downloads are insanely fast (we host a lot of OSS locally, too, versions of every freely distributable linux distribution, and we're on the roundrobin for mozilla and gentoo, for instance).
posted
After all that, I ended up getting the Dell and upgrading to XP Pro for $60.
We were about to make the purchase at MicroCenter, and at almost the same moment Eve and I just got a really bad feeling about everything. So we went with the brand I've used for 10 years.
posted
Lack of forums like this for the mac? I'm not sure what "this" you're referring to, but there are dozens of forums dedicated to macs, and even more sites that have a forum section dedicated to macs.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
The site's accurate, sort of, I'll be redoing the consulting part completely at some point. The email's fine, I got yours (I was away on vacation), and I will try to give some comments.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Sure we do. On most macs in circulation, one could install any of the Classic line at least back to 7.0, OS X (in any one of four versions), OS X Server (in a similar number of versions), many versions of linux (particularly if one boostraps from source with another install), NetBSD, or OpenBSD.
On the latest macs, one could not directly install the Classic line, but all the others still apply.
Even if we take out the ones people would be unlikely to install (but do, because sometimes its all the install disks they have), that leaves 10.2 and 10.3, 10.2 and 10.3 server, dozens of linux versions, and the two BSDs.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
You can even buy Macs from Yellow Dog with their linux preinstalled, if you are into that sort of thing.
Posts: 5422 | Registered: Dec 2001
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