Installing Windows XP Pro over Windows SP Media

[Guest]

A friend of mine (honest - it's not me), took his PC into a service centre
for repair. After getting the PC home, he found, rather than XP Pro being
installed he had XP Media. It might an un-authorized version. He gets pop
ups.

Because he already has a large e-mail history and personal address book, he
was cautious in just reloading his original XP pro. He rang $M in Australia
who said he could NOT load XP Pro over the top without wiping out everything.
I found this a little suss but given the multitude of "extras" that XP Media
puts in, would not be surprised to still see latent Media components still
being there even if a "repair" was run.
My suggestion was to backup all data files including host MS-Outlook *.pst
and *.pab files and start all over again.

Has anyone had experience of installing Windows XP Pro over and existing XP
Media OS?

 

[Malke]

A friend of mine (honest - it's not me), took his PC into a service
centre
for repair. After getting the PC home, he found, rather than XP Pro
being
installed he had XP Media. It might an un-authorized version. He
gets pop ups.

Because he already has a large e-mail history and personal address
book, he
was cautious in just reloading his original XP pro. He rang $M in
Australia who said he could NOT load XP Pro over the top without
wiping out everything.
I found this a little suss but given the multitude of "extras" that
XP Media
puts in, would not be surprised to still see latent Media components
still being there even if a "repair" was run.
My suggestion was to backup all data files including host MS-Outlook
*.pst and *.pab files and start all over again.

Has anyone had experience of installing Windows XP Pro over and
existing XP Media OS?

The advice your friend got was correct. XP Media Center is a *superset*
of XP Pro. Therefore going from MCE to Pro would be considered a
downgrade and can only be done with a clean install.

Malke

 

[Guest]

Malke, Thanks. I was hoping that it might have been possible to "back
peddle" a bit. There was always the thought in teh back of my mind MCE
leaving "footprints". I'll pass on the news as bad as it may be. He has
loaded a pile of other software adn packages the will simply have to back up
piece meal.
Thanks for your support