Whats the difference?

[lovadub]

Hi, can anyone tell me the difference between Windows XP and windows XP professional. I have XP and am interested in getting into 3D graphics and have found Maya 6 to be the one for me. The problem is that all the info about Maya 6 says it is for XP pro. What to do? Can i upgrade, would there be problems if i did? So I thought I'd ask. Thanks for any advice.

[Alan]

The Home and Professional editions of Windows XP are nearly identical; the only differences are additional features found in the Professional edition that most likely won't appeal to home users. The primary differences, aside from the price and the colour of the packaging, are as follows:

Windows XP Home Edition

Contains basic support for security among multiple users.
Built-in support for peer-to-peer networking, but only for up to five computers.
The backup utlity is not installed by default, but is included on the CD.

Windows XP Professional Edition

Includes extended support for security between multiple users on the same machine.
Better support for peer-to-peer networking, plus support for joining a "Windows NT domain."
The backup utlity is installed by default.
The Professional edition includes the following components not found in the Home edition:
Administrative Tools (in the Start Menu and Control Panel)
Automated System Recovery (ASR)
Boot Configuration Manager
DriverQuery
Group Policy Refresh Utility
Multi-lingual User Interface (MUI) add-on
NTFS Encryption Utilitiy
Offline Files and Folders
OpenFiles
Performance Log Manager
Remote Desktop
Scheduled Tasks Console
Security Template Utility
Taskkill
Tasklist
Telnet Administrator

I have never tried to upgrade from XP Home to Pro but from what I have read, it is not so simple, appently you have to uninstall SP2 and that is definitly not easy. You can of course buy the XP Pro full version and clean install.
Maybe other members advise you on the upgrade, as I said, it is only what I have read.