Caught between Pro and Home

  • Thread starter Thread starter Roger Watson
  • Start date Start date
R

Roger Watson

I purchased a new upgrade to move from 2000 to XP-Pro.
Loaded it on my lap top I use for travel. Then tried to
upgrade my XP-home to pro and got a message that the
license had been used. Made me mad, but OK.

Then I tried to return to home edition and home edition
won't let me down grade. Called the activation center
and she told me to go pound salt. Now I'm real mad and
don't know how to get out of the middle of "catch 22
Microsoft"...thank you Bill!!!

Any Advice...it's going to be a cold day in a hot place
before I purchase another Microsoft product!
 
Well, if you had read the box or the End-User License Agreement,
you would have known that XP's Product Activation prevents you
from installing XP on more than one computer without a new Product
Key. Since there is no uninstall procedure for XP Pro, you'll need
to reformat your drive and reinstall XP Home from scratch.

Go to Start > Run and type: WINVER , and hit enter. Then click
on "End-User License Agreement".

Your license to use Windows XP permits you to
install one copy of Windows XP on one computer.
A second installation of Windows XP, installed on
another computer, will require another license.

Clean Install Windows XP
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

The least troublesome method is to go ahead and purchase
a new Product Key for Windows XP Pro and activate your
current installation after changing to the new Product Key.

Additional licenses for Windows XP Professional
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/howtobuy/addlic.asp

How to Change the Product ID in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;321636


--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User

-----------------------------------------------------------------------


| I purchased a new upgrade to move from 2000 to XP-Pro.
| Loaded it on my lap top I use for travel. Then tried to
| upgrade my XP-home to pro and got a message that the
| license had been used. Made me mad, but OK.
|
| Then I tried to return to home edition and home edition
| won't let me down grade. Called the activation center
| and she told me to go pound salt. Now I'm real mad and
| don't know how to get out of the middle of "catch 22
| Microsoft"...thank you Bill!!!
|
| Any Advice...it's going to be a cold day in a hot place
| before I purchase another Microsoft product!
 
Greetings --

Let's see if I understand this. You deliberately tried to violate
the EULA to which you had already agreed, and your problem is now
somehow Microsoft's fault? What a remarkable chain of "reasoning."
Being told to "go pound salt" is really to light of a fate for wannabe
software pirates.

As is well known, the only way to change from WinXP Pro to WinXP
Home is to format the drive and start over. There is no supported
downgrade path or technique.

Simply boot from the WinXP Home installation CD. You'll be
offered the opportunity to delete, create, and format partitions as
part of the installation process. (You may need to re-arrange the
order of boot devices in the PC's BIOS to boot from the CD.)

HOW TO Install Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;316941

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/clean_install.htm

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

Of course, you'll want to back up any important data before
starting.


Bruce Chambers

--
Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. -- RAH
 
Perhaps you and I don't understand each other. I'm not
ripped about Microsoft protecting their interests. We
all need to do that.

What I'm angry about is being left in a middle ground
that has no out other than starting over.

And then, its not all that simple, I started with windows
ME (a real bomb) paid to get the upgrade to XP- Home and
now can't get back to home edition without totally
reloading my computer.not just windows, but all of my
software.

Its bad business to leave a potential user worse off than
when he started.

If XP-Pro made one mention of this in the loading
process, I would have terminated it immediately. The
last I heard.I'm 61 years old, you could load up to 3
computers if they were yours and in your possession.as it
is I never use my laptop and the desk top at the same
time.

Greetings --

Let's see if I understand this. You deliberately
tried to violate
the EULA to which you had already agreed, and your
problem is now
somehow Microsoft's fault? What a remarkable chain
of "reasoning."
Being told to "go pound salt" is really to light of a
fate for wannabe
software pirates.

As is well known (Perhaps by those in the know), the
only way to change from WinXP Pro to WinXP
Home is to format the drive and start over. There is no
supported
downgrade path or technique.

Simply boot from the WinXP Home installation CD
(would if I could, but it's a upgrade and needs a
qualifing product). You'll be offered the opportunity to
delete, create, and format partitions as part of the
installation process. (You may need to re-arrange the
order of boot devices in the PC's BIOS to boot from the
CD.)
 
Roger;
What you apparently heard is incorrect.
At least since Windows 95, maybe longer it has been one license, one
computer with all consumer Microsoft OSs.
In that time, it was never acceptable to load on more than one
computer much less three.
Read the EULA for details.

While being able to downgrade back to the original OS may be good at
times, few Microsoft OS upgrades have that capability.
Even those that do, lose the capability depending on install method
and if you decide to keep the uninstall data.
Sometimes it just does not work when it should.
An upgrade should ALWAYS be considered a one way trip.
Then if a downgrade is not possible, you are already prepared.

--
Jupiter Jones [MVP]
An easier way to read newsgroup messages:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/using/newsgroups/setup.asp
http://dts-l.org/index.html



SNIPPED
 
Greetings --


I've never heard of _any_ operating system that allows one to
downgrade to an earlier version. Why did you think that WinXP Pro
would suddenly acquire such a feature?

What's your age got to do with it, other than to prove that you
certainly should have known better? The "last you heard" has _never_
been the case, and it isn't really relevant now, anyway, since you had
to read and agree to the current EULA during the first installation.

As it has *always* been with *all* Microsoft operating systems,
it's necessary (to be in compliance with both the EULA and copyright
laws, if not technically) to purchase one WinXP license for each
computer on which it is installed. The only way in which WinXP
licensing differs from that of earlier versions of Windows is that
Microsoft has finally added a copy protection and anti-theft
mechanism, Product Activation, to prevent (or at least make more
difficult) the sort of multiple installations you're asking about.


Bruce Chambers

--
Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. -- RAH
 
You people are all a bunch of wanks for Microsoft...i'm
going to take my issue to one of the real boards.
 
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