XP Home vs. Pro vs. Embedded

[Stephen Barncard]

This is the thing about Windows that I never could understand.
Can you imagine how users would revolt if Apple came out with 'Mac OS 
Tiger Lite"?

By creating 'tiered' versions of their OS, aren't they just creating 
a big mess for consumers, not to mention a mess for themselves? What 
is taken out of XP Home that is in the 'professional' versions? Only 
a bloated monopoly would do that to its customers.

Is the MS marketing plan that the computer ships with a cheaper 
'weenie' version of the OS, with the intention of it being flawed 
enough that it encourages people to move to 'PRO' right away? How 
disingenuous is that?

To be fair, Apple did this with Final Cut Express 2. Horrible, buggy 
software with no bug fixes. I almost didn't buy the Pro version - I 
was looking real close to Avid, but finally got FC HD pro 5.  This 
time I got what I paid for.

Lite versions of anything always seem to suck. At least Avid gives 
away their 'Lite' video editor for free. It's actually not bad.

Rev content: Rev Studio is not Lite and does not suck.

>Our Rev application is to be used on kiosks, so the software (which 
>has a lot of moving parts to it) could be used continuously 
>throughout a given day. We're currently testing it under XP Home and 
>seeing some instability over the course of use. I'm starting to 
>think most of these problems are external to the application, as 
>they occur unpredictably, without any pattern, and are difficult to 
>reproduce on demand. Two items come to mind: inadequate RAM (512 on 
>a new Fujitsu laptop) and our use of XP Home.
>
>I don't know what else is running on this Fujitsu that might be 
>effecting reliability. It's an off-the-shelf unit and I'm not 
>familiar enough with XP to know which software I can disable (being 
>a Mac person) to make the unit more reliable.
>
>My question is, would upgrading to XP Pro or Embedded possibly 
>create a more reliable unit, and/or would adding more RAM make a 
>difference (the Rev application is the only application I am 
>intentionally running on this unit).
>
>Thanks.
>Richard Miller
>Imprinter Technologies

-- 
stephen barncard
s a n  f r a n c i s c o
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