What's the difference between Windows XP Home and Professional editions? Intended For Windows XP only The Home and Professional editions of Windows XP are nearly identical; the only differences are additional features found in the Professional edition that most likely won't appeal to home users. The primary differences, aside from the price and the color of the packaging, are as follows: Windows XP Home Edition Contains basic support for security among multiple users. Built-in support for peer-to-peer networking, but only for up to five computers. The backup utlity is not installed by default, but is included on the CD. Windows XP Professional Edition Includes extended support for security between multiple users on the same machine. Better support for peer-to-peer networking, plus support for joining a "Windows NT domain." The backup utlity is installed by default. The Professional edition includes the following components not found in the Home edition: Administrative Tools (in the Start Menu and Control Panel) Automated System Recovery (ASR) Boot Configuration Manager DriverQuery Group Policy Refresh Utility Multi-lingual User Interface (MUI) add-on NTFS Encryption Utilitiy Offline Files and Folders OpenFiles Performance Log Manager Remote Desktop Scheduled Tasks Console Security Template Utility Taskkill Tasklist Telnet Administrator Provides support for multi-processor systems (2 or 4 CPUs), Dynamic Disks, Fax. These components and concepts are fully documented in Windows XP in a Nutshell, the book. Written by: Annoyances.org Last updated: Tuesday, August 6, 2002 Care to discuss this article with other Windows users? Select your operating system here, and click Continue to post your question. - Choose your OS -Windows 7Windows VistaWindows Server 2003Windows XPWindows 2000Windows MeWindows 98Windows 95 Previous discussions about this article: (open a message to see applicable responses, if any) [Windows XP] XP home edition vs. Millenium? (Mike Smith: Thursday, February 21, 2002) [Windows XP] XP Home and Personal Web Server (Arthur Cunneen: Thursday, July 25, 2002) [Windows XP] Publishing a website with Windows XP Home and Professional editions?' (George Roberts: Monday, July 29, 2002) [Windows XP] XP home backup utility? (PMondor: Wednesday, September 18, 2002) [Windows XP] Question about 'What's the difference between Windows XP Home and Professional editions?' (Scott LePage: Tuesday, October 8, 2002) [Windows XP] Question about 'What's the difference between Windows XP Home and Professional editions?' (Anthony Lewis: Wednesday, March 26, 2003) [Windows XP] installing win xp home over xp pro (bernard hedgepeth: Wednesday, February 25, 2004) [Windows XP] Comment about 'What's the difference between Windows XP Home and Professional editions?' (lane: Tuesday, July 20, 2004) [Windows Me] Question about 'What's the difference between Windows XP Home and Professional editions?' (Monica: Sunday, November 20, 2005) [Windows XP] Question about 'What's the difference between Windows XP Home and Professional editions?' (Nancy Ohannessian: Friday, August 25, 2006) [Windows XP] Question about 'What's the difference between Windows XP Home and windows vista? (christina: Monday, January 7, 2008) Return to "Frequently Asked Questions"