I posted this in the relevant thread but im getting no love there.................................................

I got a new comp and my Window 98 CD doesnt cut the mustard anymore as im guessing the hyperthreading wont allow it to load and I can only get it going in safe mode. I installed a burnt copy of XP Pro over the top, but I want to buy a real copy and not have to worry about iffy software.

I can either get XP home for 195 dollars or get an XP Pro upgrade for 166.

Just wondering of the pros/cons of getting a more exp XP home CD over the cheaper XP Pro upgrade CD. I will hopefully be using the XP Pro upgrade CD over the top of the burnt XP Pro one, if not ill have to disable hyperthreading and hopefully get 98 working before upgrading to XP Pro.

Any advice would be great... Cheers.

XP pro is better than windows xphome, but not by much.. I don't belive you can upgrade win98 to xp-pro(upgrade version) but you can upgrade win98 to xphome. Your post is a little confusing sounds like your xp-pro is pirated xp-home legitimate?

Unless you do a lot of admin network stuff I'd say back-up what you need reformat and go with xp-home. and the OEM version is much cheaper than the retail version.

If I glanced at a spilt box of tooth picks on the floor, could I tell you how many are in the pile. Not a chance, But then again I don't have to buy my underware at Kmart.

Right now im running a pirated copy of XP Pro as my legit copy of Windows 98 wont work.

Both the XP Home or XP Pro Upgrade CDs im planning to buy are legit. I can get XP Home from where I bought my comp or XP Pro Upgrade from my University.

I guess my real concern is using an upgrade CD rather than a full version and it leaving old irrelevant or clashing files on my comp.

Do like I did .

Buy the upgrade version. Wipe your harddrive clean. Start the install. It will ask for your 98cd. Put it in the cd . It will check for certain files. Then reinsert XP cd and continue.
You do not have to have an opertating system installed. You just need the install disk for 95/98/ME/2000 etc.

I aint signing nothing!!!

The biggest differences I know of are that XP Pro will run IIS (webserver), you can have a domain login with pro (networking), and there are some MS products that will install on Pro that will not install on Home... like MS SQL Server. SQL is not a "home" product, so that's reasonable.

I'm sure there are more/different features, but those are the ones that are important to me.

If you don't want to join a domain, that feature is useless. Maybe you want IIS running on Pro... I dunno. I don't believe it will install on Home.

If you aren't doing development work, you probably don't need SQL (even then, you'd have to do a SQL developer install, not Standard).

You may be able to set pro up as a Terminal server, but I can't verify that... it also doesn't sound like that would matter much to you either.

Under the hood, I don't think there's very much AT ALL different between the two. I say this because I once installed XP Home from an MSDN CD (you have to be a Microsoft subscriber), and it gave me the ability to do things that I should only be able to do with XP pro.

If anything I listed matters to you, than XP Pro might be justified. If it's cheaper, I might just go with XP Pro anyway, even if it has some unnecessary features... you never know when you might want them.

I've got one XP Pro machine and my others run Win2K server... I do a lot of development work, so I need to be able to install a lot of the Microsoft tools. Fortunately, Win2K Server has also run all of my games just fine I used to duel-boot betweek Win2k and Win98SE but later just opted to use Win2k Server for everything.