Downgrade?

S

Sirius

How do you "downgrade" from xp pro to xp home?
A friend has a pc with xp pro a few years old, suddenly
her copy is not genuine anymore. She does not need pro, home would be fine.
We get a copy from eBay at a good price. The question is, how do you make
the transition?

Thank you.
 
L

Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]

In
Sirius said:
How do you "downgrade" from xp pro to xp home?
A friend has a pc with xp pro a few years old, suddenly
her copy is not genuine anymore. She does not need pro, home would be
fine. We get a copy from eBay at a good price. The question is, how
do you make the transition?

Thank you.

You can't - you have to reinstall from scratch.
There's no such thing as "her copy is not genuine anymore" - either it is
genuine, or it isn't, and she just got 'caught' because of Genuine
Advantage.
 
W

WB

Sirius said:
How do you "downgrade" from xp pro to xp home?
A friend has a pc with xp pro a few years old, suddenly
her copy is not genuine anymore. She does not need pro, home would be
fine. We get a copy from eBay at a good price. The question is, how do you
make the transition?

Thank you.

Clean install. Format drive and install a fresh copy.
Get the security updates.
 
G

George Valkov

Sirius said:
How do you "downgrade" from xp pro to xp home?
A friend has a pc with xp pro a few years old, suddenly
her copy is not genuine anymore. She does not need pro, home would be
fine. We get a copy from eBay at a good price. The question is, how do you
make the transition?

Thank you.

May I ask, do you have the original CD? If so, call for Microsoft telephone
support/activation services, they will most likely ask you to send them a
scanned image of the install-cd. And may fix your problem, so you don't need
to buy a new license. If windows asks for activation, choose to activate by
phone and try to explain what happend: and if you made any changes to the
hardware.

One thing I don't like in the activation: If install new drivers for the
ATI-AIW-9600XT video card (supports 2 monitors), this is considered 2
missing devices (2 points) and if I change the partitions table to install
linux, this makes another point. There I go 3 missing from 3 alowed :) And
finally if I want to move the old sound card to another PCI slot...
 
B

Bruce Chambers

Sirius said:
How do you "downgrade" from xp pro to xp home?


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


A friend has a pc with xp pro a few years old, suddenly
her copy is not genuine anymore.


That doesn't make any sense. If your friend originally owned a
genuine, legitimate license for WinXP Pro, then she still does.
Licenses don't expire. Why do you think the license is no longer
genuine? I'd strongly advise you to clear that up before wastiing any
money, effort, and time replacing the OS.

She does not need pro, home would be fine.
We get a copy from eBay at a good price.


Getting a legitimate license of any kind from eBay is something of
a crap shoot. One should be very careful buying any software on eBay,
as eBay makes no prior effort to ensure that such sales are legitimate.
The problems stem from two completely different sources, but have the
same results: the buyer gets ripped off. A great many people don't fully
understand the terms of the license they own, and don't understand that
they cannot legitimately resell it, and - worse still - there are a
great many sellers who do know that they're selling bogus licenses. eBay
reacts only when someone files a complaint, and then all that really
happens, especially in the case of the many deliberate fraudsters, is
the seller of the pirated software returns using a different alias, to
continue selling illegitimate licenses.

The question is, how do you make
the transition?

As above, if it's truly necessary.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell
 
O

Og

Sirius said:
How do you "downgrade" from xp pro to xp home?
A friend has a pc with xp pro a few years old, suddenly
her copy is not genuine anymore. She does not need pro, home would be
fine. We get a copy from eBay at a good price. The question is, how do you
make the transition?

Thank you.

Do you believe you are buying a non-bootleg copy of Win XP on eBay?
Steve
 
R

Rock

Sirius said:
How do you "downgrade" from xp pro to xp home?
A friend has a pc with xp pro a few years old, suddenly
her copy is not genuine anymore. She does not need pro, home would be
fine. We get a copy from eBay at a good price. The question is, how do you
make the transition?

Thank you.

How do you know the copy on Ebay is a legit one? Go out and buy a retail
upgrade copy of XP Home. Backup all important data, make sure you have the
original media for all programs and also make sure you have all the drivers
for the hardware on CD.

Do a clean install. When it asks for the CD for a qualifying product insert
one - you can get a win98 CD really cheap on Ebay, and you don't have to
install it, just insert it as proof.

After XP is installed, install drivers, AV, firewall, go to windows update
and update it. Then install all programs and restore data from backup. Now
she has a legit installation. When you try to skimp on a few bucks, you get
burned.
 
S

Sirius

Older lady, does not know anything about computers.
It's very NOT genuine, but poor thing did not know when she bought the
computer. It was custom built buy a local. I even suggested to try and go
after the local". She paid like $600.00 for her system a few years ago, and
that's a lot for it, at least he could have given her a legit copy.

"Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]"
 
S

Sirius

Definitely not. She only got a CD-R copy with xp pro hand written on it. She
did not know what it was until ran into me.
She can't even install sp2 because of this.
 
S

Sirius

Yes, I do. I am an experienced ebayer. I have two legit copies I got from
eBay. Got to look at photos and seller feedback.
Once the cd is in my hand I also can tell, the holographic images, etc.
 
G

George Valkov

Well, I have never purchased anything online. I visit websites of known and
trusted hardware shops. I'd most likely check a few sites, compare the
prises and visit a shop on feet to buy the product.

I wonder if the on-line request will be delivered faster? How long does it
takes? On the other hand, online should be cheaper, right?
 
S

Sirius

It's definitely online for me. I live close to an hour away from the nearest
Staples, and that's the only place I can "walk in" for buying software. They
deliver free over $50.00

On eBay you might get lucky with an auction or buy-it-now.
Time of delivery depends on how fast you pay, the location of the seller and
the seller itself.
 

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