Win XPHE vs. Pro: Dual Core aware?

[flyingsolo]

Maybe this is too simple but is Windows XP Home Edition dual core processor aware or is only the XP Pro edition? I ask because the following comes from MS site:

Scalable processor support – up to two-way multi-processor support.

followed by no tick for Home Edition and ticked in list for Pro version. (the actual page link is: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/p...choosing2.mspx)

I'm considering a dual core laptop with dual boot to Linux (Ubuntu) but need WinXP for some work related stuff and want to make sure it actually can use the two cores.
Thanks.

[glc]

Dual core is no problem. It's dual *processors* that Home won't support.

[flyingsolo]

Thanks but isn't dual core essentially two processors on one mother board? In what setup would you have two processors? (maybe I need to be pointed to some basic discussion of the difference!)
thanks for your patience too!

[kram 2.0]

The way Microsoft defines it is that you need XP Professional in order to run more than two physics processors. Generally, you would see dual-processors with server-calibur processors (Xeon, Opteron) that require massive system resources. In dual processors, you have two (or more) sockets and two (or more) processors to which your system can distribute the load.

Dual Core is simply two processors cores latched onto one single chip. In other words, as the data is transmitted through the pins, the processor die is capable of processing two physics streams simultaneously. There are bottlenecks, of course - and that is what makes dual core a much less expensive and less powerful than dual processors.

XP Home is capable of running two "virtual processors" (SMT, like Intel's HyperThreading) or dual core processors (ie. two cores on a single socket).

kram

[Negeva]

Easiest way to explain would be; dual core CPUs have 2 cores on the same chip whereas dual CPU setup have 2 CPUs on one motherboard, eg, 2 P4 on one mobo.