Hello. A relative has XP Home on his desktop and wants to upgrade to XP Pro. After considering his system requirements and backing up his hard drive, would the upgrade leave his hard drive's settings and information intact, or would the upgrade format his hard drive and force him to start over from scratch? I ask because I have not found a definite answer yet. Thank you.
Windows XP Question about upgrading XP Home to XP Pro
- Thread starter Mr. Shawn
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If upgrading from XP Home to XP Pro using the 'upgrade only' version you will not need to reformat your drive and you will not lose any currently installed files - but as you have said always back up the hard drive first 
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Rule of thumb is ...
Always do a clean install
... even with an upgrade version of the OS, you can still perform a clean install.
Now, having said that ... that is the preferred method from say, win98 to XP or any such OS with a big difference ... the differences between Home & Pro are primarily networking.
Bottom line in my personal opinion is ... clean install.
Always do a clean install
... even with an upgrade version of the OS, you can still perform a clean install.
Now, having said that ... that is the preferred method from say, win98 to XP or any such OS with a big difference ... the differences between Home & Pro are primarily networking.
Bottom line in my personal opinion is ... clean install.