For DAWs is there a difference between Win. XP Professional and Win. XP Home?

pisces7378

New member
I just exchanged my Pent III 933 mHz laptop (because it was a piece of shit that never worked right) for a Pent IV 1.6gHz 256 DDR SDRAM, 20 GB HD Sony Laptop. Now the laptop comes with XP Home Edition, but I could have XP Professional for half price ($110).

I know that XP Pro is good for networking and can support dual processors. I am not planning on getting into either of those things in this lifetime. So from a day to day useage point of view for use with the Echo Mona Laptop PCMCIA CardBus interface system, does it matter if I have Home Edition or Pro? Is it worth the $110, if so Why?

Thanks guys,

Mike
 
In my opinion, yes. One apparent rule of DAW building that I've learned the hard way is "never say never". One day you'll probably decide that you _do_ need to ship files via ethernet, and the lobotomized networking in Home will drive you nuts. Then, you'll get to pay full price for a new license for Pro, since there is no upgrade path.

I just had to do that myself, and I'm *still* smarting from paying for it twice. Home has so many features buried, deleted, and made impossible to access, that is is really pretty much unusable unless you do *exactly and only* what Microsoft think Joe and Mary Sixpack are going to do with a home computer. They've optimized it for surfing porn sites, clicking and drooling on AOL, and playing games, I guess. Doing anything beyond that is like pulling teeth- For Your Convenience, of course. In my opinion Home was not intended for DAW folk, who by definition are power users (or are either going to become power users _real soon_, or end up taking up golf...).

I personally think it would be much wiser to go with Pro. Yes, it is more money up front- but one day I suspect that you'll be glad you did. It's much better to do it right than to have to pay Bill to do it twice, like I did...
 
>that is is really pretty much unusable unless you do

that's a pretty strong statement coming from someone that paid those Paltalk Clowns for their useless service... hehehe

And "lobotomized" networking?

I've moving freekin' Gigabytes through my network card using XP Home.

I side with Shailat. The best config for a DAW is standalone.
I've never heard of a 2" tape machine with networking capability.

Clean as a baby's ass as he says.

This is not the most convenient for me since I also want to surf porn sites and exchange files via the Internet.

If you think you might want to set up a network and want to be able to play administrator or want that dual processor support then go for XP Pro. Or maybe you think that the mondo-cool screensaver that comes with pro is worth the extra C-Note. :D
 
Um, what is so hard with transfering files via ethernet... or the Internet for that matter? Unless you feel the need for 2 processors and are a true power user (in the fact that you prefer to do things without the aid of many "wizards") most of the things you need in a DAW can be gotten in XP home...


Vice
 
XP Home works great as a DAW OS, provided the rest of your hardware is relatively current - contrary to MS's spiel.

Like most, I'm very leary of changing OS's when they first come out, but XP doesn't bug me as much as it use to - once you make it behave/appear (no, not blue screens) more like 98, with improvements in stability (and questionable, I've never had problems with 98 as DAW, set up correctly).

I also, have had no network related problems with it. Except for getting it to network with 98, but that's another story.
 
i think xp home is fine...as long as you aren't doing HUGE networking, or using 2 proccessors.

frmo what the microsoft page says...XP really offers nothing mcuh more then networking a ton of comps easier, better security (goes with the network thing), and dual proccessors...i think many would agree too.
 
Yup. Getting Home to network with Samba proved to be downright impossible. At every corner, I ran into pieces of documentation that said (approximately) "we left that really complicated stuff out of Home, for your convenience: you should have bought Pro, dumbshit". And I *need* Samba to be able to talk to my DAW, because my backup server (with the tape autoloader) is a Unix machine.

I value backups (automatic, unattended, nightly backups) very highly- I tend to lose much less of my data (and my sanity) when I have good backups online at all times. But a lot of folks get away with never backing up at all, or just backing up to the local machine occasionally, or burning the odd CDR now and again. Whatever- they're just not as paranoid as me, I guess.

I stand corrected: I now grudgingly admit that XP Home is every bit as usable as Pro. However, I reserve the right to chuckle a little bit whenever someone else discovers the things they can't do with it and finds that they have to lay out full price for the upgrade to Pro. I wasn't the first, and I sure as heck won't be the last.... Buy Home in good health, and more power to you.
 
I think skippy's point of view applies to xp home and pro. The whole OS has been streamlined for joe and mary sixpack on the face of it. You have to dig for the options where 98 had all the options up front. Stabilitywise and speedwise it is THE definitive DAW OS right now. Stick with home and youll be fine.
 
Thanks guys... I guess I will just stick with XP Home. It is only a stupid mental thing that I have that makes me want Pro. I like the "Blueness" of XP Pro rather than the "Greenness" of XP Home. And I always like to have all my basis covered. I do not want to install a ton of apps, do a ton of work, get everything the way I want it, and then realize... shit Mike, you have to go buy the Pro version of this OS in order to be able to do that. Then I have to go spend more money and do all that config. all over again.

But I will DEFINITLY never be using dual processors with this machine, and I will NEVER network with this machine. It is a freaking SONY Pent IV 1.7gHz LapTop. I might network my "real" DAW machines one day if my clientel ever grew to that magnitude, but seeing as that ain't happening in this decade, I am sure Windows will be on Windows XP 2012 by the time I get that kind of network need.

But thanks for everyone's input. It has been great.

:)
 
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