Some features have been 'crippled' or removed in the Home edition that appear in the professional edition. This is why there is both a 'Home' version and a 'Professional' version, of what is essentially the same 32bit operating system. What is Windows XP? Both Windows 2000 and XP have been built on the 32 bit Windows NT kernel, whilst Windows 98 and ME have both evolved from the 16 bit Windows 95 kernel (Windows98 and ME are now 32bit OS's.)Historically, Windows 95 was designed to focus on 'consumer' users running games, spreadsheets, word processors and internet browsing - whilst Windows NT, had its background more in the 'corporate' arena for use in business networks and IT.Generally speaking, NT has always been considered to be the more robust and reliable operating system.Microsoft have obviously made the decision to market the Windows XP operating system, as an 'all-singing-all-dancing' solution for all levels.
Good luck and happy music making with your XP system.
However, a carefully performed XP installation combined with time spent configuring and streamlining selected XP features, will almost certainly improve the performance with most professional audio and music software. Professional audio applications should run extremely well on a standard installation of Windows XP without any further system tuning.
Tuning Windows XP for Audio/Music Applications
