Installing XP home over XP professional

[Guest]

My sons girlfriend has a HP laptop which originally came with XP home
installed. Some time in the past a copy of XP professional was installed. She
has no recovery discs for either OS. They have since bought a genuine set of
XP Home installation discs and have asked me to install this on the laptop.
However it seems that XP HOme is an older version than XP professional and it
will not overwrite professional. How can I uninstall professional so I can
install XP Home? I have looked on Add/remove programmes but the option is not
there.

The reason for wanting to install XP Home is that when professional was
installed it seems whoever did the installation played around with it and it
does not work right. I can't do recovery so this is the best option.

 

[Ricky]

Have a look here..
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

 

[Bob Harris]

You can use the XP home CDROM to run the recovery console, then delete the partition containing XP Pro. If the system is like many others, there is only one partition on one hard drive. If not, it is likely the first partition on the first hard drive, unless that partition is very small, in which case it is mor elikely a recovery partition left over form the PC maker. That can also be deleted. The command within the recovery console is called DISKPART. It creates, deletes, and changes partitions.

Here are some links about the recovery console:

http://www.wown.com/j_helmig/wxprcons.htm

http://www.xxcopy.com/xxcopy33.htm (near bottom)

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/win_xp_rec.htm

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314058


If the recovery console asks for a password, try just hitting return, or try the primary administrator's password.

If you can still login to XP Pro as an administrator, you can also try this registry fix to avoid the recovery console asking for as password:



Start à Run à Regedit


Navigate to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Setup\RecoveryConsole


Set the DWORD SecurityLevel value to 1




If that does not work, you may need to try a non-XP method of deleting partitions, such as FDISK, GDISK, etc. Many such low-level routines are available on the free Ultimate boot CD available at the following link. Be sure to use an option like burn-to-disk in Nero or Easy CD Creator to trasnfer the ISO to a CD. Do not simply drag&drop it.

http://ubcd.sourceforge.net/

Of course, deleting partitions effectively erases all data, so save personal files first !

If you do decide to delete partitions, the XP installation process should offer to create a new one for XP. Or, you can use the same tool that deleted the partitions to make new ones first. The advantage of the second method is that you can make more than one partition to separate XP and programs form your personal files. Then, in the future, should XP need to be reinstalled, only the XP partition would need to be destroyed. (XP also supposrts a "repair" install that fixes XP, without destroying data and settings, but that only works from a retail XP CD, the same one used to install XP.)

 

[Jim]

My sons girlfriend has a HP laptop which originally came with XP home
installed. Some time in the past a copy of XP professional was installed.
She
has no recovery discs for either OS. They have since bought a genuine set
of
XP Home installation discs and have asked me to install this on the
laptop.
However it seems that XP HOme is an older version than XP professional and
it
will not overwrite professional. How can I uninstall professional so I can
install XP Home? I have looked on Add/remove programmes but the option is
not
there.

The reason for wanting to install XP Home is that when professional was
installed it seems whoever did the installation played around with it and
it
does not work right. I can't do recovery so this is the best option.

Sorry, you don't install XP home over XP pro. That is a regression not an
upgrade.
Thus, you just perform a clean install. The clean install removes (it is a
bit of a stretch
to call this uninstalling XP pro though) whatever operating system is
present and replaces
it with the one on the disk..

Before doing this, make certain that you have whatever speciall drivers that
the laptop
hardware needs. If you don't do this, be prepared for unpleasant surprises.
I would also
backup whatever data that the owners may need before proceeding.

Now, if they had only bought an XP pro disk, you most likely could get by
with a repair
installation.

Jim

 

[1D10T]

My sons girlfriend has a HP laptop which originally came with XP home
installed. Some time in the past a copy of XP professional was installed.
She
has no recovery discs for either OS. They have since bought a genuine set
of
XP Home installation discs and have asked me to install this on the
laptop.
However it seems that XP HOme is an older version than XP professional and
it
will not overwrite professional. How can I uninstall professional so I can
install XP Home? I have looked on Add/remove programmes but the option is
not
there.

The reason for wanting to install XP Home is that when professional was
installed it seems whoever did the installation played around with it and
it
does not work right. I can't do recovery so this is the best option.

Boot the laptop and watch the P.O.S.T. screen to get into the BIOS. Change
the boot order to boot from CD, insert the CD. Shut down, restart, and
proceed from there. After XP Home is installed, return to the BIOS and reset
to boot from HD.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

My sons girlfriend has a HP laptop which originally came with XP home
installed. Some time in the past a copy of XP professional was installed. She
has no recovery discs for either OS. They have since bought a genuine set of
XP Home installation discs and have asked me to install this on the laptop.
However it seems that XP HOme is an older version than XP professional and it
will not overwrite professional. How can I uninstall professional so I can
install XP Home? I have looked on Add/remove programmes but the option is not
there.

The reason for wanting to install XP Home is that when professional was
installed it seems whoever did the installation played around with it and it
does not work right. I can't do recovery so this is the best option.

I'm afraid that 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.

After backing up any data you wish to transfer to the new OS
installation,, 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

Then the backed up data can be restored and applications re-installed.


--

Bruce Chambers

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[Ken Blake, MVP]

My sons girlfriend has a HP laptop which originally came with XP home
installed. Some time in the past a copy of XP professional was installed. She
has no recovery discs for either OS. They have since bought a genuine set of
XP Home installation discs and have asked me to install this on the laptop.
However it seems that XP HOme is an older version than XP professional and it
will not overwrite professional.

No, it has nothing to do with being an older version. The issue is
that it is a downgrade, and downgrades are not supported.

How can I uninstall professional so I can
install XP Home? I have looked on Add/remove programmes but the option is not
there.

You can *not* uninstall Professional. You simply format the drive as
part of the Windows XP Home installation. That removes XP
Professional and everything else on the drive. Just boot from the
Windows XP CD (change the BIOS boot order if necessary to accomplish
this) and follow the prompts for a clean installation (delete the
existing partition by pressing "D" when prompted, then create a new
one).

You can find detailed instructions here:
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

or here
http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org/how_do_i_install_windows_xp.htm

or here http://windowsxp.mvps.org/XPClean.htm

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

Remember this means the loss of *everything* on the drive, so back up
everything you need first, and be sure you have the CDs to reinstall
all the software.