JG has missed the point. While he may be running AutoCAD successfully
on his little home network, in a corporate environment it causes
nothing but problems. XP Home is meant for exactly that, home. I do
tech support for a living, supporting both Microsoft and Autodesk
products. I have managed up to 80 AutoCAD users and their workstations
in one company that migrated from Windows 2000 to XP. One idiot in IT
even suggested we use Home on certain workstations just to save a few
bucks. He doesn't work there anymore, not just because of that stupid
suggestion, but many more. In a work environment with a network Home
will be nothing but problems. A small peer to peer network works for up
to three people. Add more than one print device and problems ensue.
Count on one of those machines to be a file server and you get more
problems. If you keep your client files on your local hard drive you
better be backing up frequently, because you will eventually lose that
hard drive.
That is why Pro has all those features that Home does not. Pro allow
you set up a domain. Servers are cheap and domains are pretty simple to
set up.
Now JG may start the old tired rant about Microsoft downgrading Home
just to be able to charge more for Pro. People can cry all they want,
the prices are what they are. If you want a good running CAD
workstation on a network you have to have Pro.
I get many calls from Autodesk clients that try to run their Autodesk
products on Home and have nothing but problems. Most of these have to
do with the fact that their "Home" computer is being used for too many
other things that it shouldn't, like AIM, games, photo editing, email,
internet. Autodesk products have become resource intensive. Most people
that have XP Home on their PC have done so to save a few bucks over the
price of really good workstation and pay the price in performance
because they want to do everything on that one machine. Autodesk
products will not work optimally in that type of setup. And a business
should not be set up that way.