XP home SP2 to XP pro SP2

[Dan]

I have an installation of XP home sp2. I have a retail XP pro sp2 disk.
I'm assuming it's a straightfiward process to upgrade home to pro?

Fred

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I have an installation of XP home sp2. I have a retail XP pro sp2
disk. I'm assuming it's a straightfiward process to upgrade home to
pro?

Backup all important data/contacts/emails by running your scheduled backup
early...
Put in Windows XP Professional CD while in Windows XP home edition.
If it does not 'autorun' - open it in Windows Explorer and run setup.
Choose to upgrade...
Follow instructions.

 

[GSV Three Minds in a Can]

I have an installation of XP home sp2. I have a retail XP pro sp2 disk.
I'm assuming it's a straightfiward process to upgrade home to pro?

Yep, it is trivial, the simplest and most likely to work upgrade you can
do .. but still back up critical data before you start. If you have a
retail disk/package it probably even tells you how to do it. 99% of
things don't actually change anyway.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I have an installation of XP home sp2. I have a retail XP pro sp2
disk. I'm assuming it's a straightfiward process to upgrade home to
pro?

Yes, it's very straightforward. In fact, it's the easiest and most-likely
successful of all possible upgrades, since so little has to be changed.

But are you sure you want to do this? Are you aware that XP Home and
Professional are identical except that Professional includes a few features
(mostly related to security and networking) missing from Home? Most home
users don't need and would never use these extra features and will see no
benefits by upgrading.

For details go to

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_home_pro.asp

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/whichxp.asp>

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/howtobuy/choosing2.asp

Also note another point, not included in any of the above: Professional
allows ten concurrent network connections, and Home only five.

 

[Dan]

Yes, it's very straightforward. In fact, it's the easiest and most-likely
successful of all possible upgrades, since so little has to be changed.

But are you sure you want to do this? Are you aware that XP Home and
Professional are identical except that Professional includes a few
features (mostly related to security and networking) missing from Home?
Most home users don't need and would never use these extra features and
will see no benefits by upgrading.

For details go to

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_home_pro.asp

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/whichxp.asp>

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/howtobuy/choosing2.asp

Also note another point, not included in any of the above: Professional
allows ten concurrent network connections, and Home only five.

Ken & Shenan-Thanks for the replies. I want to upgrade to pro because I
recently got 2 more gig of ram (from 2 to 4 gig) and home cannot use more
than 3 (2.93, to be exact :-\ From what I have been told & read
(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555223) pro will be able to use all 4 gig.
Plus I have the disk anyway.

Fred

 

[Rock]

Ken & Shenan-Thanks for the replies. I want to upgrade to pro because I
recently got 2 more gig of ram (from 2 to 4 gig) and home cannot use more
than 3 (2.93, to be exact :-\ From what I have been told & read
(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555223) pro will be able to use all 4
gig. Plus I have the disk anyway.

AFAIK, there is no difference between Home and Pro in memory handling. You
will still see less then 4GB of RAM in Pro.

 

[Curt Christianson]

Hi Dan,

Both XP Home and Pro are 32-bit OS's, and both should be able to handle 4MB
RAM. The biggest limitation would be the mobo.

Now 64-bit XP, that a different story...

--
Curt BD-MVBT

http://dundats.mvps.org/
http://www.aumha.org/

 

[Kerry Brown]

Ken & Shenan-Thanks for the replies. I want to upgrade to pro because I
recently got 2 more gig of ram (from 2 to 4 gig) and home cannot use more
than 3 (2.93, to be exact :-\ From what I have been told & read
(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555223) pro will be able to use all 4
gig. Plus I have the disk anyway.

Fred

Changing to XP Pro will not allow the OS to see more of your RAM unless the
XP Pro is the 64 bit version. The RAM limitation is caused by the
motherboard using some of the address space for itself not by XP Home.

If you do decide to go ahead with the upgrade in addition to backing up your
data (just in case) it is a good idea to uninstall any antivirus and
antispyware programs before doing the upgrade then reinstall them afterward.
Some of these programs protect system files and the registry which may cause
the upgrade to fail.

 

[Dan]

Changing to XP Pro will not allow the OS to see more of your RAM unless
the XP Pro is the 64 bit version. The RAM limitation is caused by the
motherboard using some of the address space for itself not by XP Home.

If you do decide to go ahead with the upgrade in addition to backing up
your data (just in case) it is a good idea to uninstall any antivirus and
antispyware programs before doing the upgrade then reinstall them
afterward. Some of these programs protect system files and the registry
which may cause the upgrade to fail.

I suspect you're correct. I was planning to load the pro on my 2nd sata for
dual boot anyway, maybe I'll just do that 1st & see. The mobo manual says
"If you install 4 one gig modules, the system may detect less than 3 gb
because of address space allocation for other critical functions. This
limitation applies to XP 32 bit since it does not support PAE mode" and
"This motherboard can only support 8 gb on the operating sytems below" where
it lists Win2k advanced server & XP pro 64 bit. No mention is made of
Vista, though I suspect at least the 64 bit would use all the ram. I am
wondering what these unspecified "other critical functions" are. The mobo
has a number of capabilites I am not using at the moment, such as wifi, dual
lan controllers, external sata ports, and probably some other stuff I'm
forgetting. I wonder if there is a way to disable any unused "other
critical functions" to see all 4 gig.

Fred

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Ken & Shenan-Thanks for the replies. I want to upgrade to pro
because I recently got 2 more gig of ram (from 2 to 4 gig) and home
cannot use more than 3 (2.93, to be exact :-\ From what I have been
told & read (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555223) pro will be able
to use all 4 gig.

Nope. They both can use exactly the same amount.

Moreover, unless you use extremely RAM-hungry applications (such as
Photoshop) chances are that you would see *no* difference in performance by
having more than 2GB (probably no difference by having more than 512MB).

Plus I have the disk anyway.

Unless there's some benefit to your using it (and it appears that there is
*not*), you'd be better off selling it.

 

[Kerry Brown]

I suspect you're correct. I was planning to load the pro on my 2nd sata
for dual boot anyway, maybe I'll just do that 1st & see. The mobo manual
says "If you install 4 one gig modules, the system may detect less than 3
gb because of address space allocation for other critical functions. This
limitation applies to XP 32 bit since it does not support PAE mode" and
"This motherboard can only support 8 gb on the operating sytems below"
where it lists Win2k advanced server & XP pro 64 bit. No mention is made
of Vista, though I suspect at least the 64 bit would use all the ram. I
am wondering what these unspecified "other critical functions" are. The
mobo has a number of capabilites I am not using at the moment, such as
wifi, dual lan controllers, external sata ports, and probably some other
stuff I'm forgetting. I wonder if there is a way to disable any unused
"other critical functions" to see all 4 gig.

Fred

The address space is mostly used by the PCI bus. Some motherboards have an
option to move these functions above 4 GB. It's usually only seen on server
boards. Vista x86 has the same limitation. Vista x64 doesn't.

Try adding /PAE to the boot.ini. Usually you can get XP to see around 3.25
GB. Contrary to your motherboard documentation /PAE does work in 32 bit
versions of XP.

 

[Dan]

Nope. They both can use exactly the same amount.

Moreover, unless you use extremely RAM-hungry applications (such as
Photoshop) chances are that you would see *no* difference in performance
by having more than 2GB (probably no difference by having more than
512MB).




Unless there's some benefit to your using it (and it appears that there is
*not*), you'd be better off selling it.

I do manipulate some large images in PS CS9, but probably not often enough
to justify the cost.

 

[Dan]

Try adding /PAE to the boot.ini. Usually you can get XP to see around 3.25
GB. Contrary to your motherboard documentation /PAE does work in 32 bit
versions of XP.

Kerry-Boot.in reads as follows:
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home
Edition" /FASTDETECT /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN

Where would I add the text?

Thanks

Fred

 

[Kerry Brown]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home
Edition" /FASTDETECT /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN /PAE

I see you have DEP enabled. I'm not sure but I believe when DEP is enabled
that PAE is also enabled. Adding the /PAE option won't hurt but it may not
change anything either.

--
Kerry Brown
Microsoft MVP - Shell/User
http://www.vistahelp.ca

Try adding /PAE to the boot.ini. Usually you can get XP to see around
3.25 GB. Contrary to your motherboard documentation /PAE does work in 32
bit versions of XP.

Kerry-Boot.in reads as follows:
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home
Edition" /FASTDETECT /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN

Where would I add the text?

Thanks

Fred