Many individuals get confused as to what the difference is between Windows XP Home and Windows XP Professional editions. Basically, what sets the two editions apart is the target market. With House Edition, Microsoft is targeting directly at consumers and property owners. On the other hand, Windows XP Pro is targeted at business users and power users.   Basically, every feature present in Home Edition can be found in Expert. But because Pro is made for corporate networking, it packs added features that aren't present in Home. Regarding this reason, some property owners might not be attracted to using Pro since most added features in Pro might be improper and not of much value to the typical home owner. However, house owners can still use the Professional Edition if they want, and even small businesses use the Home Edition.   1 very evident difference between XP Pro and XP OR 7 Home is security. Home windows XP Home Edition is equipped with basic support for security among multiple users. This means that with a Home Release, anyone who logs on has full control, and therefore is not very effective in security. Nevertheless with Windows XP Pro Edition, extended support is included for security between multiple users on the same machine.   Other features missing from the Residence edition range from the Backup Operators, Power Users, and Replicator Groups. And, the addition of a new team called Restricted Users can even be present in the Pro Version. In Windows XP Residence Edition, the backup utility is not installed by default. But, you can always install it using the Windows XP Home CD. On the other hand, backup power is installed automatically in XP Pro Edition. Furthermore, Pro provides better support for P2P or peer-to-peer networking, and not restricted to only five computers (as with Home). Also, support for joining a "Windows NT domain" is present in Pro Edition.   Generally, XP Professional Edition contains components which are not present in Home Edition. Such components include Administrative Tools (which can be found in the Smart Menu and Handle Panel), ASR or Automated System Recovery (to help your system recover from serious errors such as those that make system unbootable), Boot Configuration Manager, DriverQuery, Group Policy Renew Utility and the MUI or Multi-lingual interface addition.   Also, Windows XP Expert contains NTFS Encryption Utility, OpenFiles, Remote Desktop, Traditional Files and Folders, Performance Log Manager, Taskkill, Tasklist, Scheduled Tasks Console, Security Template Utility, and Telnet Administrator. Pro can support several multi-processor systems, as in 2 or 4 CPUs (Home Edition facilitates only one).   Pro also supports dynamic disks, while Home only supports the standard simple disk type. There is no integrated fax functionality included in Home Edition, but you can always install one from the XP Residence CD.   Those are some distinctions between Microsoft Home windows XP Home and Expert Edition. If you think most features present in Pro does not suit your needs, then save yourself a hundred dollars and go for the Home Version. Besides, if you wish to improve to Pro, Microsoft offers a less-expensive "Step-Up" upgrade for those Home users who want to in order to Pro.