Go home or call a professional?

Earlier this week I was coaching a client of mine and helping her set up a remote connection on her office computer to enable her to work from home. This is fairly simple to set up but I ran into one little problem–she only had the Home version of Windows XP. Windows XP Home, unlike its big brother, Windows XP Professional is lacking (or in some cases cleverly hiding) several features that Microsoft has deemed most users with computers in their homes will not need. Unfortunately, the ability to allow remote connections is one such feature.

Whenever I buy software that offers me a choice (such as Home vs. Professional) I almost always buy the higher, more expensive Professional version. For example, I run Windows XP Professional on all of my computers. The reason for this is that I never know when I might just need that one feature that isn’t included in the lower, Home version.

This leads to an interesting decision for noobies. Should you follow my pattern and always buy the higher, more expensive Professional version? Well, I guess that decision would really need to be made on a case-by-case basis. If you are on a tight budget, it may be an easy decision. But I do urge you to carefully review the comparison charts between the versions to make sure you understand what you are sacrificing by not getting the higher, Professional version. If budget is not an issue, I would recommend the Professional version the majority of the time if for no other reason than to save you the grief and the expense when you find out you need to upgrade just because the one feature you thought you had or now find out you need is only available in the Professional version.