Hi garyb,
Barring Murphy's Law rearing its ugly head during the upgrade, yes, existing
settings/files/folders/programs should remain intact. If you have any files
(for example, documents, pictures, etc.) that you would be loathe to lose,
I'd highly recommend copying them to removable media (floppy, zip, CD, USB
drive, for example) before performing the upgrade.
Also, since your Home Edition is w/SP2 installed, the XP Pro CD would also
have to be w/SP2 installed in order to do the upgrade. If the XP Pro CD does
not come with SP2 installed, you can create slipstreamed XP with SP2 CD by
following these instructions:
http://www.theeldergeek.com/slipstreamed_xpsp2_cd.htm
Regards,