XPE is designed for embedded applications, such as when OEMs ship a piece of hardware with XP preinstalled under the hood.
The main difference is you can customise XPE images a lot more than XP, but its not really designed for 'office environments'. The embedded products are usually a little cheaper to encourage people off linux solutions for the same problem. Its mainly used in things like kiosks, newer vending machines, Point of Sale machines, bank ATMs, etc.
It would help if you describe exactly what your trying to do. When you mention installing windows without having to register / set up, is this just a user annoyance issue, or something else (like not being networked when this happens)?
Are you selling hardware to people that has windows installed on it? If so could you sell with MS preinstalled?
EDIT: i realised i didnt really answer your question. Hardware, network, AD, etc is all similar to normal XP. As for users, although it doesnt get a lot of press, the embedded line is in a LOT of products, you just dont normally notice it as most OEMs put a pretty shell over the top. Kind of like the popularity of CE.
Regards,
Tom  |