Microsoft Windows xp professional?

[bloop]

As an operating system on a laptop what does this mean? it runs on xp but does the professional part mean? does it mean you get word and excel etc included?
can you please explain what it means then mr stalkington that was the question i asked
Thanks everyone!

[spell chaser]

Windows 95 98 2000 XP Vista are operating systems from Microsoft Then you have Apple and Linux all are operating systems Pro means you get more stuff and I did get Office Xp with this computer

[Devontheasker]

No you buy word, excel, powerpoint, etc... Seperatly. There are 3 types of Xp

- Home (2002)
- Professional (2002)
- Media Center (2005) (media center has all that pro has and more

Pro is more like for office use business use, maybe for programers, gamers. Its alot better than home

Important to know:
Vista just came out that means they already planned to cancel updates for xp. Home will expire 2008
Pro will expire 2012
so your pretty good till 2012. but in 2012 i would upgrade to vista because all bugs and errors will be fixed by then

[thunderintheheavens]

It's different from XP Home and XP Media edition because it has extra security features such as file encryption that don't exist in other editions. I have used both and to be honest don't find either to be of any stunning advantage.

You don't get word and excel included.

[Lorne]

It has more functionality than Home to manage a larger network.