XP Home boots faster than XP Pro?

Question

I've just installed a fresh copy of Windows XP Professional on my EEE PC 1000H, configured everything drivers/patches etc. and noticed the killer bootup time is now gone!

So I was wondering wether XP Pro loads slower than XP Home or is it some black magic optimization inside the machine that made booting to XP Home faster? I guess this because some Asus drivers won't install without a proper patch.

I've tried disabling all the unnecessary services, removed components like IIS and networking tools and whatnot to no avail...

Can someone enlighten me?

Answer 1

Windows XP Home is slimmed down from Professional, and in particular the network stack does not have the mechanics around domains etc included. Just on that basis you will most likely see improved boot times. Windows XP Service Pack 3 did bring a some speed improvements thought.

Home also doesn't include the GPO loading and various other little small tweaks which is not needed in a non-corporate environment.