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Why upgrade from Home XP pro

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by jgengineer 1 view

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I'm reading the threads about people upgrading from the pre-loaded Home Edition XP Pro 2002 SP3 (after updates) which is what came on my PC as well.
Everything works great so why are people trying to change it?
I also read that XP can emulate DOS.
Does that mean I can salvage my old DOS programs like AutoCad? My old computer works and has Windows 98 which allowed you to switch to DOS for all the old DOS games etc. I'm quite sure all the money spent on Legal Law partner and 3D Designer etc is lost money unless I keep the old computer for occassional use.

15 replies

by dkeith45

I have a drive dedicated to WinXP home and use it primarily. I have another drive with WinXP pro corp and don't see the diff really. There are some things you need Pro for, but can't think of them off hand, except for example, BartPE needs pro to build a bootable USB drive.

You can open a dos prompt in XP, and run dos commands. I don't think that means you can run dos based programs within XP...

SO, get a KVM switch. I use a two port switch and I use it a LOT. With a KVM, you can run your current WinXP system AND your old Win98 system using only one Keyboard, Monitor and mouse.

by seanferd

It's a CMD prompt. Yes, it is a command line environment, but not DOS (which is it's own OS) by a long shot.

Any NT version of Windows does not have DOS.

There are DOS emulators for various NT versions of Windows, but they can't emulate everything about DOS, and tend to be for specific application types, and can't always fully emulate DOS on processors that are far different and far faster than processors from the DOS era, and they won't support all of the various types of hardware either.

by oh smeg

XP Home is a Cut down version of Pro the main differences is that you can not join a Home Machine to a Domain and that the Windows Encrypted File System isn't on the Home Version.

There are other differences but the above 2 are the bigger ones. Unless you are running a Home Work Group then with Home you can only have 5 Concurrent Connections where as with Pro you can have 10 Concurrent Connections.

[i]I also read that XP can emulate DOS.[/i]

Yes it can Emulate DOS this is because there is [b]No DOS[/b] in XP at all so it Emulates the OLD DOS Commands which are a development of the Unix Command System. Sorry but Emulate DOS doesn't mean run Old DOS Programs it can just look like DOS under some circumstances. ;)

[i]Does that mean I can salvage my old DOS programs like AutoCad?[/i]

No it doesn't mean that.

Windows 98 was a DOS System where as XP is built on the NT System which doesn't have any DOS in it. Windows 98 was a Windows Shell running on top of DOS so switching to DOS was not an issue however as there is no DOS Platform in XP there is no way to envoke DOS Programs.

[i]I'm quite sure all the money spent on Legal Law partner and 3D Designer etc is lost money unless I keep the old computer for occasional use. [/i]

Yep that's more or less right, you could dual Boot your XP System with 98 but as there is very little support for 98 these days it's better to run a 98 Box isolated from everything but local services. So no Internet, E-Mail or anything like that as it's way too hard to keep 98 Box's secure.

Col

by jgengineer

Thanks for your help. That clears everything up. One of the posts I got said something about a KVM switch but from what your saying I think having the old system not networked, so it won't get bugs and viruses is the best thing.

by oh smeg

So with a KMV Switch you can run two systems together but not have then networked.

Only problems come about when you need to reinstall the OS on one as some KMV Switches screw with the hardware and it falls over or if you are using more than 1 monitor. Not many KMV Switches support Multi Monitor Configuration or USB keyboards & Mice. ;)

Col

by seanferd

which fall under the Domain category, are the ability to use Policy settings, and NT Security settings as well, as opposed to Simple File Sharing (yuck).

These are also available in the Media Center Edition.

But if you have no use for these, Home edition is just fine. (Then again, one is constantly questioned as to "How can I..." with a Home edition OS...

by jay.okane

There is an Open Source emulator that will run on Windows XP that will allow you to run DOS based applications. It appears to have a slant towards gaming, but I can't see why productivity apps wouldn't also work.
For more information, see www.dosbox.com.
For a full DOS experience, look at Microsoft's Virtual PC. This is also free.

by jgengineer

One post I got said no Dos programs can be run on my Home Edition XP Pro SP2.
But what I'm hearing is that if I download the Open Source Emulator I should be able to run my old programs and get more speed using my newer system. That sounds great. The monitor drivers which allow this 21" monitor to work shouldn't matter with old DOS programs right?

by ron k.

There is no such thing as Home Edition XP Pro SP2.
You either have XP Home Edition, XP Media Center Edition or XP Pro edition. If you have SP2 for whatever you have you should know that Service Pack (SP) 3 is now available. Just open Internet Explorer, go to Tools|Windows Update and get the latest updates. Be aware that SP3 is a large update and will take some time to download.
It's good practice to keep your computer(s) up to date with all of the security patches and whatnot. SP3 rolled a lot of patches into one large bundle.
It's also likely that you have Windows 98 SE (Second Edition). If not I don't know if you can still upgrade to SE. I think that Microsoft cut off support for 98.

by jay.okane

The size of the monitor shouldn't be an issue if it is a standard 4:3 ratio.
If you have a widescreen (16:9) monitor, you may not be able to run DOS session in full-screen mode.

by seanferd

Maybe. Maybe the apps will work. Maybe they will mostly work. Maybe they won't work at all. Maybe they will seem to work swimmingly for a while, until you try to do some certain thing, then WHAM! So always have backups of your files.

You may have to try several different emulators before you find something that works (if at all) for a particular program. If you aren't into experimentation and the possibilities of sudden failure on something important, stick with keeping a DOS/Win9x machine around.

See also
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314106

by ron k.

To see what version of Windows you have open My Computer, go to Help\About Windows on the menu bar. A window will open showing you what you have.

by seanferd

AFAIK, it was an entirely separate purchase, not a "service pack" type thing. (It * a lot of people off...)

by ron k.

I'm finding little to back that up. Without spending a lot of time on it the best I've found is this: http://www.pcnineoneone.com/howto/win98se.html
It's possible that I just got the available downloads. It's been so long ago that I can't recall it accurately.
*pulls out driver's license-checks name*

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