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Do I need XP Pro to use dual core?

starkweather

starkweather

starkweather

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15 Apr 2006
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98
Someone told me I will need to upgrade from Windows XP home edition to Windows XP pro in order to use dual core. But someone else told me that I may not have to, that there might be something else I can download in order to use a dual core processor.

Can someone enlighten me?
 
starkweather said:
Someone told me I will need to upgrade from Windows XP home edition to Windows XP pro in order to use dual core. But someone else told me that I may not have to, that there might be something else I can download in order to use a dual core processor.

Can someone enlighten me?
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Don't need Pro :)
 
I think I remember something about SP2 being needed. Not sure on that tho - and I would very much doubt there are many people that don't have it.
 
From Microsoft:

Microsoft Windows XP Professional and Microsoft Windows XP Home are not affected by this policy as they are licensed per installation and not per processor. Windows XP Professional can support up to two processors regardless of the number of cores on the processor. Microsoft Windows XP Home supports one processor.
Click to expand...
 
Zogger said:
I think I remember something about SP2 being needed. Not sure on that tho - and I would very much doubt there are many people that don't have it.
Click to expand...
Don't need SP2.
 
...but can anyone say whay Fumbles's post isn't relevant? I noticed the same thing in passing when looking at the OEM licencing for XP Home and Pro, there is a reference to 1 CPU and 1-2 CPUs respectively.

Can anyone shed any light on this?
 
achitophel said:
...but can anyone say whay Fumbles's post isn't relevant? I noticed the same thing in passing when looking at the OEM licencing for XP Home and Pro, there is a reference to 1 CPU and 1-2 CPUs respectively.

Can anyone shed any light on this?
Click to expand...
What is there to shed light on :confused:

Home supports 1 CPU. Pro supporst 2 CPUs.

A CPU is defined as a physical processor, regardless of its number of cores*.






* = Not quite true. Home is limited to up to 2 logical processors (so a P4 HT or a dual core CPU will take the license to its limit). Pro is limited to 4 logical processors (so a single quad core chip, or 2x dual core chips, or 2x P4 HT chips will take the license to its limit).
 
NathanE said:
Don't need SP2.
Click to expand...

generally that is true - however I believe there are some early editions of windows XP home (commonly from OEM suppliers, dell, etc.) that don't support more than 1 CPU and 1 CORE unless upgraded to SP2 - those editions when booted in safe mode still show whistler at each corner of the screen instead of XP Home.
 
You believe wrong :)

PS: If a copy of XP still says it's Whistler then anything is possible... CPU licensing is the least of your worries :)
 
THIS very early article suggests that XP Pro supports 2 CPUs, whereas XP `Personal` only supports 1. Obviously, the name `Personal` had been changed to `Home`.

Even now, XP Home supports only 1 CPU, but Dual core is ok because its still 1 CPU package - the 2 cores are connected to each other with an independant bus and not a motherboard bus which would be the case for those motherboards with 2 seperate sockets, in which case XP Pro is the way to go.

But what is interesting is the new Intel Kuntsfield - now that is simply 2 Core2Duo processors on one package (to make quad core) but with each Core2Duo communicating over the motherboard bus, essentially being 2 completely seperate processors. Im not sure XP home would support this processor.
 
Biglunn said:
THIS very early article suggests that XP Pro supports 2 CPUs, whereas XP `Personal` only supports 1. Obviously, the name `Personal` had been changed to `Home`.

Even now, XP Home supports only 1 CPU, but Dual core is ok because its still 1 CPU package - the 2 cores are connected to each other with an independant bus and not a motherboard bus which would be the case for those motherboards with 2 seperate sockets, in which case XP Pro is the way to go.

But what is interesting is the new Intel Kuntsfield - now that is simply 2 Core2Duo processors on one package (to make quad core) but with each Core2Duo communicating over the motherboard bus, essentially being 2 completely seperate processors. Im not sure XP home would support this processor.
Click to expand...

THAT's waht I was concerned about, but didn't know enough about Intel's architecture to express coherently :)

Taking all of the comments above into account, it looks like there are two potential reasons why XP Home may not work with a Kentsfield:-

1. Limit of one physical CPU - due to the chip architecture, Kentsfield is implemented as effectively two CPUs.

2. Limit of two logical processors - if this is the case, then XP Home can never work with Kentsfield, given it will have four cores.

Again, if I'm missing or misunderstanding something, please set me right :)
 
Wouldnt surprise me if MS release a small patch to allow 4 virtual cores support on XP Home, as they have repeatedly said that its sockets that counts not cores.

Of course they may just say with Vista coming out soon, there's no need to retroactivly fix XP Home for quad core support.

Me.. Well I already moved to XP 64bit edition, its great, and being pro based it supports QuadCore out of the box anyway.
 
Wikipedia said:
Another issue is the question of software licensing for multi-core CPUs. Typically enterprise server software is licensed "per processor". In the past a CPU was a processor (and moreover most computers had only one CPU) and there was no ambiguity. Now there is the possibility of counting cores as processors and charging a customer for two licenses when they use a dual-core CPU. However, the trend seems to be counting dual-core chips as a single processor as Microsoft, Intel, and AMD support this view. Oracle counts AMD and Intel dual-core CPUs as a single processor but has other numbers for other types. IBM, HP and Microsoft count a multi-chip module as multiple processors. If multi-chip modules counted as one processor then CPU makers would have an incentive to make large expensive multi-chip modules so their customers saved on software licensing. So it seems that the industry is slowly heading towards counting each die (see Integrated circuit) as a processor, no matter how many cores each die has. Intel has released Paxville which is really a multi-chip module but Intel is calling it a dual-core. It is not clear yet how licensing will work for Paxville. This is an unresolved and thorny issue for software companies and customers
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Rest here :)
 
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