Windows Editions and Service Packs
Windows XP is actually available in several different flavors, each of which is intended for a different market:
- Windows XP Professional
The power-user edition of Windows XP, and the subject of most of this book.
- Windows XP Home
This less-expensive edition of Windows XP is nearly identical to the Professional edition, with only a few minor exceptions. For instance, a few administrative tools present in XP Pro are missing from the Home edition.
- Windows 2003 Server
This edition is designed for those running a web server, domain server, or another mission-critical application (and if you don't like Unix). It's effectively the same platform as Windows XP, also with only a few minor exceptions when it comes to the end-user experience and the topic of conversation in this book.
On top of this assortment, Microsoft releases bug fixes and security patches for all editions of Windows several times a month, and if you have XP's auto-update feature enabled (Chapter 6), you likely have most or all of those updates already installed.
Now, from time to time, Microsoft consolidates all these patches into Service Packs, theoretically making it easier to assert precisely which version of Windows you're using. As of this writing, two service packs have been released for Windows XP:
- Service Pack 1 (SP1), released in September 2002
Released roughly a year after Windows XP first hit store shelves, SP1 contained nearly all the maintenance fixes to date, as well as a beefed-up ...
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