one os n two pcs

i have two pcs n one windows xp home edition (oem) n windows me (oem)..
i'm thinkin of installin xp on the windows me system.. can i use the same windows xp or do i have to buy another xp? if i have to buy another one is it worth gettin xp pro?

You have to buy another or you won't be able to activate it on both at the same time. Don't you just love their lovely little system that looks at hardware and everything to decide whether you have the right to use it or not?

Anyway, I definitely recommend Pro. It lacks all the bloat and junk that home has but is still perfectly functional. I'm running on pro right now and I must say that it is nice. Well, I shouldn't have to say it. I've been at war against the NT family for generations, yet, I'm actually willing to get along with this one... That in itself tells you something, ne? ^_^

Oh, and one nice thing about XP Pro is that you should be able to just buy multiple licenses instead of seperate copies when you want it on multiple computers. Though in this case it's probably not worth the cost to have two when you still have one copy of XP Home to use. The downside of course is that XP Pro is a lot more expensive.

Nazo said:

Anyway, I definitely recommend Pro. It lacks all the bloat and junk that home has but is still perfectly functional. .

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Elaborate please since XP PRO has *more* built into it than XP Home.

Nazo said:

Oh, and one nice thing about XP Pro is that you should be able to just buy multiple licenses instead of separate copies when you want it on multiple computers.

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Unless your buying a volume license (5 licenses minimum), then any other so called "license" is not legal. Buying COA's or licenses only are also not considered legal.

Chaballaman,

It's one license per computer, since you've already installed XP Home on one computer, you'll need to purchase an additional copy for your other computer. XP Pro is the way to go *if* you want to some of the other features of XP PRO. Checkout Microsoft's How to Choose page to see what the differences are between Home and Pro.

Ok, to be perfectly honest I never even installed the Home edition since my dad managed to get this (and that did add up to about 5 people I suppose. I don't know, I just let him handle that stuff.) As for bloat and things, this is admittedly second-hand information. However, I've heard that from a LOT of people. Nothing but complaints about how home does this or that. Just because that microsoft chooser thing shows home as lacking "features" doesn't mean it can't still have bloat added to make it more "friendly" to the home user. I guess you'd be surprised how many complaints I've heard about home from people who say that pro is better.

Nazo said:

Ok, to be perfectly honest I never even installed the Home edition since my dad managed to get this (and that did add up to about 5 people I suppose. I don't know, I just let him handle that stuff.) As for bloat and things, this is admittedly second-hand information. However, I've heard that from a LOT of people. Nothing but complaints about how home does this or that. Just because that microsoft chooser thing shows home as lacking "features" doesn't mean it can't still have bloat added to make it more "friendly" to the home user. I guess you'd be surprised how many complaints I've heard about home from people who say that pro is better.

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I'd have to say then those people are seriously misinformed or have no clue what they are talking about since XP Home is the *SAME* as XP Pro with a few features missing or crippled. There is no additional "bloat" to XP Home, the only bloat is those people complaining about it.

Now I can understand people complaining about how they can't change NTFS permissions, join a domain, or use XP Home as a remote desktop server, but that does not justify the spread of misinformation as fact.

If that's really all there is to it, I could understand one or two people, but this is rather a lot, even some reviews from a good while back when XP was relatively new. (Off hand, I remember some kind of complaint about it forgetting all their settings.)

Anyway, I don't know more specifically than that. XP Pro more than handles everything I've ever wanted from it and runs smoothly enough (ok, so this computer isn't exactly low end, but you get the idea.)

umm i might just stay with win me on 2nd system for a while.. n get win xp home if i really need it. does current windows xp have sp1 already on cd?

If it doesn't, you can just make one yourself. There are tutorials all over the web on how to do this. (It's relatively easy when you don't want to do anything more complicated like add your own software -- which can also be done.) It's a bit of work I admit though, so you might not want to. However, I like this because the same method can be used to add some hotfixes such as the RPC bug fix.

Are you sure about WinME though? That is THE worst version of windows since 3.x And I'm not exagerating. Basically it just took Win98SE, added two or three new things that no one ever used and more bugs than a mere human can count. (First time I installed it, before drivers or anything, I was treated to BSODs before the first login. It went downhill from there no matter how many times I reinstalled.) If you have 98SE, it's a better choice. Heck, plain old 98 might be better... If you have a choice on any of this anyway.

i've heard many bad things about win me from many diff people but i personally never had any issues with it.. n i've using it on daily bases since it came out..
i think it kinda runs faster than xp.. at least on boot up anyway..

Nazo said:

Are you sure about WinME though? That is THE worst version of windows since 3.x

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At least you managed to get one thing right in this thread.

SJConsultant speaks wisdom... Listen. Also, WinME is generally accepted as the worse OS MS released. 98SE>ME, but 2k or XP>any 9X kernel... If the hardware will run 2k or XP it's a better choice, $ depending.

Phoenix86 said:

2k or XP>any 9X kernel... If the hardware will run 2k or XP it's a better choice, $ depending.

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Unless you like oldies. Then 2K & XP SUCK. Though at least things like DosBox are slowly improving to one day be quite good I'm sure (in the meantime, VDMSound -- which hasn't been updated in a LONG time -- will still suffice to most 16-bit games.) Anyway, I do agree of course, 98SE is the best of the 9x kernels. Though personally Win2K and I do NOT get along (I remember the first time I tried it I couldn't even get it to support my 100% MS compatible mouse just because it wasn't actually made by ms. *sigh*) Win2K wasn't so great for any kind of non-standard hardware. However, XP seems to excel even in that department, so my only single complaint is the loss of real DOS.

Yeah yeah, I know. Not many people play those really old games and many of them will work without real hassle anyway. I'm just saying.