Overwriting Win XP Home Edition

S

Sylvia Williams

If I install WIN XP Pro on top of Win XP Home Edition,
will I loose the information stored with WIN XP Home
Edition, ie documents, programs, etc?
 
G

Gordon Burgess-Parker

Sylvia said:
If I install WIN XP Pro on top of Win XP Home Edition,
will I loose the information stored with WIN XP Home
Edition, ie documents, programs, etc?

You SHOULDN'T, but as with all things, backup anyway, just in case....
 
R

Ron Martell

Sylvia Williams said:
If I install WIN XP Pro on top of Win XP Home Edition,
will I loose the information stored with WIN XP Home
Edition, ie documents, programs, etc?

If your XP Pro is a retail version (retail upgrade or retail full
install, both of which come in a blue Microsoft box) then there should
be no problems. However backups are always a good idea.

If your XP Pro is an OEM version (comes in a shrink wrap package and
the CD says "for sale only with a new computer system" or similar on
it) then that version will not install as an upgrade. OEM versions
are intended only for new computers, which do not have a previous
version of Windows on them, and therefore will do an upgrade.

If that is what you have, and if you are certain that you really need
or want to have at least one of the relatively few features and
functions that are found only in XP Pro and are not included with XP
Home then your only alternative is to:

1. Use the Files And Settings Transfer Wizard in XP Home to save your
data files and configuration settings to another hard drive partition,
a network drive or a removable backup device such as CDRW or tape.
2. Reformat the hard drive and install XP Pro on the empty drive.
3. Reinstall the application programs.
4. Run FASTW from XP Pro to import the data saved from XP Home.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."
 

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