Xp Media Center Edition & AMD Processors

I'm needing to get a computer for my son who is blind. He will be learning to use Jaws and Microsoft Office Student and Teacher Edition 2003 which go hand in hand to allow visually handicapped people to use a computer. He will learn how to surf the internet, email etc. His instructor says he could use either XP Home or XP Pro but in the long run she would advise to go with the latter. He has a college degree and hopes to get a job so this computer will possibly be used for that purpose also.

I've decided to go with a Dell because it is fairly reasonable in price and I can pick and choose what I think he needs. Now my two questions:

1. Dell charges $90 to upgrade from XP Media Center Edition to XP Pro but I've been told by a retail store that Microsoft considers Media Center an upgrade above Pro, so which is it? If I've been told my son needs to have XP Pro would Media Center be comparable and work in it's place, or do I need to stay with Pro?

2. Second, I've never had anything but an Intel processor but Dell says I can get more for my money by going with AMD Athlon, are they as good as Intels? I have two systems I have put together one has a Pentium D Processor 805 with Dual Core Technology (2.66GHz,533FSB) and the other has a AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (2.00GHz,512Kx2), would one of these be preferable over the other?


Mike

 

You don't need to buy another copy of XP Pro. Media Center is packaged as an OEM product, and as such, will not perform upgrade installations, it will only do clean installs. Media Center is built on XP Pro, with only two features disabled.

1) Except at initial installation, it cannot join a domain.
2) Logon credential caching, for network resources, is disabled.


Other than that, all of the features you're used to in XP Pro are available.

 

okay thanks!