Windows XP Home Edition:
Experience more than you thought possible with your home computer and the Internet. Windows XP Home Edition brings dependability and simplicity to your personal computer. It includes a cleaner, more intuitive visual design, advanced digital media features that make working with digital photographs or playing digital music simple and fun, and many new Windows experiences to explore.
* Contains basic support for security among multiple users.
* Built-in support for peer-to-peer networking, but only for up to five computers.
* The backup utility is not installed by default, but is included on the CD.
Windows XP Professional Edition:
Designed for businesses of all sizes and for home users who demand the most from their computing experience, Windows XP Professional delivers the new standard in reliability and performance. It includes all the great features and new visual design of Windows XP Home Edition, plus premier security and privacy features, advanced recovery options, improved ability to connect to large networks, and much more.
* Includes extended support for security between multiple users on the same machine.
* Better support for peer-to-peer networking, plus support for joining a "Windows NT domain."
* The backup utility is installed by default.
The Professional edition includes the following components not found in the Home edition:
* Administrative Tools (in the Start Menu and Control Panel)
* Automated System Recovery (ASR)
* Boot Configuration Manager
* DriverQuery
* Group Policy Refresh Utility
* Multi-lingual User Interface (MUI) add-on
* NTFS Encryption Utilitiy
* Offline Files and Folders
* OpenFiles
* Performance Log Manager
* Remote Desktop
* Scheduled Tasks Console
* Security Template Utility
* Taskkill
* Tasklist
* Telnet Administrator
* Provides support for multi-processor systems (2 or 4 CPUs), Dynamic Disks, Fax.