XP Home vs Pro

[Kills On Site]

I am building a computer for my aunt and uncle and am trying to keep cost down. I know differences exist between XP Home and Pro, but there is one difference that really caught my attention. According to one thing I read XP Pro provides support for two CPUs where as home only provides for one, would this mean XP Home is not compatible with a Core 2 Duo? or what exactly is it talking about?

[Foo]

Fully patched, home supports multi-core CPUs properly. It won't support multiple seperate processors but shouldn't have any impact on dual or quad-core single-chip systems.

[Foo]

BTW go with a basic vista license, not XP. The costs aren't far off each other and since you'll be buying an OEM copy with the hardware, it should be cheap.

They'll get a lot more mileage out of Vista since all the literature that's going to be coming out from now on and all the 'cool new stuff' they'll read about and mess about with on their own will be based around vista. They won't want to find out down the line that you put an obsolete OS on for them.

BTW for a cheap PC, don't built, buy. Units like the acer L320 are cheap as fuck for the basic power they provide.

[FragaGeddon]

And if you're going with an OEM version, I'd back it up as soon as windows is installed.
You're only allowed so many installs with an OEM version, then you have to call in to get it activated.

Edit: you may never go over that amount, but it's better to do it now.

[Kills On Site]

I have Vista on my laptop, its alright, but has Vista solved all of the problems with installing in on a new system? I know drivers for Vista are much more common now, but I'm still wary of it. They have two printers, not sure if either of them work or anything like that, but I would have to see if Vista drivers exist for them. Also these are older people who don't do well with new surroundings.

I will pose the question to them as to if they want Vista or XP. All they really do is surf the internet, email, and play minesweeper/solitare. The only program, useful that is, that I saw on their computer was Turbo Tax. I think XP is going be like Windows 98 in the sense that it will last for a long time.

Here is what I have, the price ceiling, or ballpark, I forget which one it was, but I believe it to be more ballpark rather than a limit, is $800.

• Antec Sonata III with 500 Watt PSU
• MSI P6N SLI Platinum nVIDIA 650i chipset
• BFG Tech 8500 GT 256MB GDDR2
• Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 2.66 GHz Conroe 4MB L2 cache shared
• Corsair XMS2 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 800
• NEC Floppy Drive
• Western-Digital 160GB SATA 3.0 Gb/s 16MB cache
• Lite-On DVD-RW SATA with Lightscribe

I know they will never use the SLI on that motherboard, but the nVIDIA 650i is supposed to be pretty good and nicely priced, not to mention 650i's come with a printer port, one of theirs is paralell port only I believe. Yes they still have and use floppies on occasion. Only thing missing is the OS.

Frag brings up a good point about backing up, so I have a question. Is there a good backup program that can backup the hard drive so something like a DVD, dual layer if it won't fit on a single layer, without needing to be installed on the machine first. That way I could have a backup DVD, one for them and one for me (since most people lose things) and just bring it back up to that state if I ever needed to. It would also be really sweet if it put a smaller version of itself on the DVD so one could simply boot to the DVD and bring it back that way.

[FragaGeddon]

I use True Image for backing up my OS.
You can also use this program for backing up your day to day data, but I just use SyncBackSE for that.
But True Image allows you to break up the file if needed to burn it to a CD or DVD, etc.

I'd highly recommend creating 2 partitions.
Then moving the following folders over:
Desktop
Favorites
My Documents
My Pictures
My Music
This way, all you have to do is put the image back and not have to worry about saving data.
I also install Programs onto the D drive also.

I also recommend doing 2 backups.
One basically when you got windows installed and activated and updated.
Then one when you got all your basic programs installed (adobe pdf reader, firefox, etc.) & drivers (keyboard, mouse, printer).

[FragaGeddon]

Also if you install firefox, create a shortcut from the exe in the programs file.
Then goto the properties of that shortcut and add ' profilemanager' without the ' to the end of the target field box.
Then you can create a new profile, and create a new folder on the d drive.