On Tue, 2003-11-11 at 14:50, Chris Gehlker wrote:
> Seems like a curious question for this group but I don't feel like 
> joining a Windows mailing list just to ask it. Besides, it's actually a 
> Samba question in disguise.
> 
> I was trying to add some Windows XP computers to a a domain and it just 
> wasn't working. I finally wised up to the fact that these computers 
> came preloaded with some crippled version of Windows called 'Home 
> Edition' even though the salesman had sold them to the poor business 
> owner as office machines. The OS had been customized with HP splash 
> screens and whatnot to the point where it was only obvious that it was 
> something like XP. I didn't really know that MS deliberately made 
> something crappier than Windows.
----
here we go again - is it really necessary to bash Windows?

WinXP Home edition is simply incapable of creating/having/joining a
domain - I've not studied the exact differences enough to know whether
it is simply crippled or fundamentally varies from WinXP Professional
except that I know if anything beyond simple home networking is desired,
WinXP Professional is what you need.

ALL retail computers that have WinXP on them seem to be Home Edition and
you have to buy the Professional Upgrade if you actually want them to be
on real network. Whether the salesperson or the buyer were both naive is
not material any longer. The fact remains that if you want to dance to
the music, you eventually have to pay the piper.

Windows, like Macintosh, Linux, BSD etc. is simply a tool to do a job.
Not any one tool is the best for all uses, each apparently has it's own
time and place and though there is a lot of overlap, it is the presence
of each of them which makes each one of them better.

Craig