Dear All,

I have the following queries:

1) Is Windows XP Professional a network operating system? Can we specify users, domain, and workgroups on it?

2) Does it support the running of ERP Applications such as Oracle, SAP
JD Edwards etc.

yes to the first question... WinXP Pro supports users/domains/workgroups. It only acts as a workstation though, so while it can join a domain, it can't be a domain controller. On the other hand, WinXP Home can only do users/workgroups (no joining a domain).

I'm not sure about your other question, but for stuff like that you would probably be better off with Win2k Server.

CUViper covered the first part quite well, and as for the second I can work with it.

When you say "run", do you mean connect as a client or a server? As a client, I use QAD's MFG/Pro 8.6D just fine at work, but hosting the application would be a different story. ERP systems run on a database (Oracle, Progress, SQL variants, etc) AND they have their own files to run. Both of these systems require connections from the incoming clients. However, NT-based workstations are capped to 10 concurrent connections (including IIS) and this limit can be easily reached in the smallest of environments. Are you looking to host an ERP application as a test bed? If so, you are best off doing it with a server OS (Linux is VERY good at this if you can't get an NT/2K server license) and then doing a dump and restore of live data from a play/production environment so you can work with it. Also, are you including any EDI packages in this installation?