Can any one tell us wether there is more than one windows xp professional disc.
I am trying to buy one for our computer and staples wanted £259 for their copy on e-buyer it is only £86. I just wondered if their is any difference because e-buyer have 2 differant prices and they look like the same disc but one has x 64 W/SP2C and the other just has W/SP2c on it. Woulkd appreciate some help or advice. Graham

Hi. I know with Vista there is a 32 meg or bit or something and a 64 so may be the same with XP?

If the ebuyer one is OEM you'll just get the disk, no book or owt, also they're only supposed to sell OEM with a new CPU or HDD.

There are academic versions available, full retail with the box and instruction manual, for around £70ish for the 32bit version on ebay.
The 64bit version is for if you have a 64bit processor

You can officially only buy the 32bit version of XP now. There used to be a 64bit edition, but it was scrapped when vista came out.

You should pay around £70-90 for an OEM copy of XP pro. Which is fine. Theres absolutely no difference between that and a retail version, other than theres no box. I always use OEM versions when building new PCs.

David

Translation:

x 64 W/SP2C = 64 bit (only for 64bit PC's) "with Service Pack 2c"

W/SP2c = 32 bit (i.e. normal XP) "with Service Pack 2c"

The service pack bit just means it has most of the major updates already on it (despite this once its installed there could be anything up to 150 updates still to download )

Also look out for OEM versions - these are cheaper because the are supposed to be supplied with a new PC only (and come with that little licence sticker)

also there are the 'home' and 'pro' versions - home is cheaper as it doesn't have things like domain networking, remote desktop etc....

stak.com sell OEM XP home for £58.74 and pro for £89.29 (NTWM)

[Edited on 1/2/08 by mcerd1]

There is a corporate version of XP that has no activation etc. but it won't accept the normal OEM licence keys. I don't suppose that EBuyer is selling that however!

Do you specifically want XP Pro - XP Home is £52.88 with free delivery from ebuyer. I've bought a number of OEM copies from there for various PCs. Just don't lose the licence key on the wrapper as you don't get a fancy case.