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Microsoft is expecting Home Edition to appeal to customers in a home

environment, as well as to business customers who lack a formal IT


staff. The key difference is that Home Edition is not meant to operate in
a managed environment.The best way to describe the features included
in Home Edition is to compare the product to its predecessor.Windows
XP Home Edition offers the fol-
lowing improvements over Windows 2000 Professional:
Improved multimedia capabilities
An improved user interface
A simplified security model
The ability to quickly switch between user sessions
Better hardware and software compatibility

Multimedia Capabilities
Microsoft added a number of new multimedia and Internet features to
Windows
XP Home Edition, including the following:
Internet Explorer 6 (IE6)
Windows Media Player 8 (WMP8)
MSN Explorer browser

IE6 is the next version of the popular browser from Microsoft. In its
newest release, it contains a couple of interesting features, which are
contained in the Personal Bar.The Personal Bar contains a Search
applet, an MSNBC News/ Stock/Weather applet, and a Media Player
applet in a resizable window. However, for the most part, IE6 acts like
IE5. From the outside, it has been refreshed to match the new interface,
with redesigned icons and rounded edges.You can see some of these
changes in Figure 1.1. Another addition to the Windows XP platform is
Windows Media Player 8. WMP8 builds upon the successful Windows
Media Player 7 by adding new interface changes, improvements in
copying from audio CD to hard disk (otherwise known as ripping), and
more skins for customizing the look of the player. Figure1.2 displays a
screenshot of WMP8.WMP8 now supports burning of audio CDs
from within the WMP itself.The following files types can be burned to
audio CD: .wma, .mp3 and .wav

Improved User Interface


The user interface in Windows XP Home Edition has been completely
remodeled. For starters, the Start menu button has changed, as well as
the taskbar.A neat feature of the new taskbar is the option to group
similar programs together on a single taskbar button.When you click on
the button to restore the program, you see a small menu listing the
instances of the program, and you can choose which to restore. Figure
1.3 shows Taskbar and Start Menu Properties

The Start menu has also been transformed into a panel of links to the
various features within the OS. Figure 1.4 shows an example of the new
Start menu with most of the options enabled.

Security Enhancements
In terms of security,Microsoft has attempted to provide the benefits of
the Windows NT/2000 security model, while still making the system
easy to operate and administer. XP Home Edition has two account
types: Computer Administrator and Limited (refer to Figure 1.5).The
Computer Administrator can add, remove, and change user
accounts,make universal changes to the system, and install applica-
tions.A Limited user only has the capability to change his/her password.

Users of XP Home Edition or XP Professional can log on using a


“Welcome” screen that lists the names of the user accounts, as shown in
Figure 1.6.A user simply needs to click on her name and provide the
password, and she is authenticated onto the system. (A wise
Administrator would be quick to turn off the Welcome screen and Fast
User Switching functions in a workgroup environment as they present
an additional security risk that far outweighs the benefits of this new
nicety. It is important to note that turning off the Welcome screen
automatically turns off Fast User Switching.)

Switching between User Sessions


Microsoft has introduced a concept called Fast User Switching that will
allow users to switch between user accounts while leaving applications
running in the background. For instance, let’s say that User1 is logged
into the system. User2 would like to check his e-mail. So, User2 will
perform a “switch user,” log in as himself, and check his mail.All of the
applications that User1 was working on will stay running in User1’s
context.When User2 is finished, User1 can “switch user” back
to herself, and she can continue working on the applications that were
open when User2 logged on. Figure 1.7 shows the Switch User option
dialog box.

Hardware and Software Compatibility


Lastly,Windows XP Home Edition has been designed to run many of
the legacy applications that are on the market today.Microsoft achieved
this by adding a compatibility mode to the operating system.This allows
you to run an application in Windows XP and emulate an older OS,
such as Windows 95.Windows XP will try to provide the hardware-
level access that is requested by the application without sacrificing the
integrity of the kernel

In terms of hardware compatibility,Windows XP has the most advanced


Plug and Play features of any Windows operating system. For the end
user, this means that many of the older first-generation PnP devices, as
well as a number of non-PnP devices, will work with WinXP.WinXP
also has an improved driver set.

Not included
Microsoft made the decision to leave out much of the enterprise features
from the Home Edition, choosing to include them in the Professional
edition. For example, if you need to add your PC to a Windows 2000 or
Windows NT domain, you must use Windows XP Professional.

Many of the neat things that are part of Windows 2000 Professional are
excluded from the Home Edition, but they are included in WinXP
Professional.These features include the following:
IntelliMirror technologies
Group Policy functionality
Encrypting file system support
Multiprocessor support

As we mentioned in the preceding section,You can join XP Professional


to a Windows 2000 or Windows NT domain. In a Windows 2000
Active Directory environment, XP Professional can take full advantage
of those features that are dependent on the domain login.These include
the neat features described in the preceding list, as well as roaming
profiles and Remote Installation Services (RIS). We delve into the
feature list in much more detail shortly, but rest assured, Windows XP
Professional offers many advantages compared to Windows 2000
Professional.

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