About to buy XP, have a question about versions...

[furryrabidbunny]

I am about to take the plunge and invest in Windows (need it for work). I am buying an oem from newegg, my question is in regards to XP MCE. MCE is about twenty bucks more than Home, but about twenty less than Pro, but isn't MCE just pro with consumer upgrades with all the pro advantages?

 

[Nermal]

MCE isn't officially supported under Boot Camp, if that's important to you.

 

[furryrabidbunny]

MCE isn't officially supported under Boot Camp, if that's important to you.

Yeah it is, thanks. Really dont want a pain in the ass install. I'll just go with home.

 

[weldon]

MCE isn't officially supported under Boot Camp, if that's important to you.

On the other hand, there isn't really any meaningful support from Apple during this beta period for Boot Camp. Apple provides the drivers, but those will work with any version of XP. If you install MCE and only use the first disc, you basically have XP Pro. There are workarounds to use the second install disc and get the MCE functionality on your intel-based Mac. I would suggest going with MCE.

 

[balamw]

On the other hand, there isn't really any meaningful support from Apple during this beta period for Boot Camp. Apple provides the drivers, but those will work with any version of XP. If you install MCE and only use the first disc, you basically have XP Pro.

Apple doesn't sell or support any version of Windows, and Boot Camp is really a number of separate things.

1) A firmware update that enables booting some legacy OSes
2) A HDD repartitioning tool
3) A boot selector
4) A set of drivers optimized for XPSP2 Home and Pro
5) A tool that helps you launch the XPSP2 install disc from within OS X

Only 4 and 5 require a particular version of Windows, and as indicated in the Win2KSP4 SUCCESS thread, other versions of Windows can even make use of some of the XPSP2 drivers.

B