Release Date

• Like Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Home Edition was "released" on August 24th, 2001 for use with newly-built PCs. The stand-alone retail version of Windows XP Home Edition, which were released for both new computers and Windows 98 upgrades and consisted of the installation disks, was released on October 25th, 2001.
  
  

Differences from XP Professional

• Windows XP Home Edition lacked several features found in Windows XP Professional. Some of the omitted features in XP Home included Windows Server and Remote Server support, the Encrypting File System and dual CPU support. Windows XP Home also lacks certain administrative features, such as roaming profiles, group policies and the ability to install programs remotely from another machine.
  
  

System Requirements

• Even by 2001 standards, Windows XP had some modest PC requirements. In order to run Windows XP Home Edition, a PC needed a meager 233 MHz processor and 64 MB of RAM. Windows XP Home Edition was also fairly small, needing only 1.5GB of hard drive space. With the two service packs released by Windows since 2001, that number has grown to just over 4GB.
  
  

"Media Center Edition"

• Windows XP Media Center Edition is, for all intents and purposes, Windows XP Home Edition with the inclusion of the then-new Windows Media Center software. This software, which included a specialized program that could play movies, music, scroll through pictures and watch television, provided a TV Tuner card is installed on the PC.
  
  

Support

• Even though both Windows Vista and Windows 7 have come to retail, Microsoft has pledged continued support for Windows XP Home Edition. With monthly security updates to keep Windows XP users protected from hackers and viruses, Microsoft will support Windows XP until April 8th, 2014. On that date, Microsoft will put Windows XP out to pasture and focus on both Windows 7 and their next OS.