Hi there,I am upgrading my system to AMD XP2000+ with ASUS AV7266E MOBO and 512 MB DDR RAM. I am confused at the moment to which operating system shall I install. I am interested in the WIN XP but do not know which would be better if Home or Professional. I heard that on the Professional version no games can be played however this is a more stable system in general.Any help and advise please from anyone really appreciated.Regards,Emann.

Pro can run everything the Home Edition can and a bit more.So it's down to you if you are willing to pay for the extra features - FS will run fine on both./Lars

"I heard that on the Professional version no games can be played..."Not true at all.http://www.thesalters.org/images/Avsim_sig_KS.jpg

Emann,Unless you have a network of PCs the Pro version is unnecessary. the Home version (which I have) will do all that you need.Don't be fooled into thinking the Pro version is somehow superior to the Home version - it isn't. The core code is identical in both versions with just extra network facilities available in the Pro version.Also, XP manages memory much more efficiently that Win 9x ever could.Cheers,

I've got XP Pro on my FS2K2 system and my laptop. I upgraded from win98, very pleased. Since they were both $99 at hastings, I just went with the Pro version, very nice for networks, and since I've got three networked computers at home, it was an obvious choice. you really can't go wrong with either.Joe

Major advantage to Pro is the support for multi threading. Put simply it allows the use of a 2 or more processor system which will then send applications to seperate processors; example photoshop on 1 and FS on the other. It also allows programs which support multithreading to off load different tasks to different processors. Photoshop is one such program.Although FS2K2 is not a multithreaded program who knows about 2004 .Unless you are planning a multiprocessor machine in the future or are running a network then XP Home should be fine and save you some bucks you can spend elsewhere, such as more memory or a geforce 4. Hope this helps and enjoy your new machine.

Just to clarify the networking issues: XP Home is fully capable of networking in the peer to peer environment that would typically be used with a home network. Home lacks the ability to join and function as a full member of a Windows NT or 2000 server domain. XP Home also lacks the remote desktop server component (it does include the client piece.)Generally home users don't need any of the "extras" in XP Pro as they're all corporate network related.

. Home is multi-threaded on the one CPU.http://www.thesalters.org/images/Avsim_sig_KS.jpg

True all those, but if you can find a place that sells it at student rate, the Pro and Home versions are the same price. No sense in not getting the Pro version.Joe

One thing to remember, if you have more than one PC, XP Home and XP Pro do not "play" together very well. Best to stick to just on OS.I am running XP Pro at home on an AMD XP1900+ with same mobo and memory configuration. Very fast and stable. Except for Friday night when a video driver upgrade corrupted some DLL and I couldn't find it and get it fixed. Had to re-install.You can't go wrong with either of these. Just make sure you take snapshots before doing upgrades. Duh! If only, would've saved me a re-install. Oops..Jim

XP Pro and XP Home work fine together ;-) It's just like linking Win2k Server with Win2K Pro.XP Home will do you fine :)

I have Pro and the only problem I have ever had (and it has happened a lot), is video driver crashing. This of course is due to the use of the experimental Detonator drivers more than anything else. The other problem that precedes this is sometimes the driver crash might get the startup to get stuck in a loop and one needs to go to Safe mode to recover.But Hey this would also happen in Home version...Shez