Repair XP Home vs. Upgrade to XP Pro?

[Guest]

Hi, Iam running XP Home and it has gotten majorly hosed up. I tried to run
"sfc /scannow", and it prompted me for the XP System CD, which Gateway never
sent with the system when I purchased it. Now, it seems that I have to
purchase the XP Home Full Version to be able to use the Recovery Console.

My question is: Will purchasing an Upgrade to XP Pro enable me to fix the
OS, or should I buy XP Home Full? If XP Pro Upgrade will work, will all of
my already installed applications still work OK, or will I need to reinstall
everything?

Thanks is advance for any help/advice.

 

[Jerry]

First, Gateway owes you a recovery disk.

Second, buying XP Pro upgrade will work and your stuff will still be there
when the upgrade finishes. The problem will be possible future reinstalls.
If you don't have a disk from Gateway you won't be able to run the XP Pro
upgrade to do a new install because you wont have a 'prior' version to
upgrade.

Best bet is to buy the full version of XP Pro - not the upgrade, to preclude
future installation problems.

 

[Test User]

Hi, Iam running XP Home and it has gotten majorly hosed up. I tried to run
"sfc /scannow", and it prompted me for the XP System CD, which Gateway never
sent with the system when I purchased it. Now, it seems that I have to
purchase the XP Home Full Version to be able to use the Recovery Console.

My question is: Will purchasing an Upgrade to XP Pro enable me to fix the
OS, or should I buy XP Home Full? If XP Pro Upgrade will work, will all of
my already installed applications still work OK, or will I need to reinstall
everything?

Thanks is advance for any help/advice.

An XP Pro (or Home) upgrade CD will work as you wish, yes, but you need to
be aware of one thing: If your drive dies and you have to replace it, you
will only be able to re-install with the Upgrade CD (Pro or Home) *if* you
can supply a qualifying Windows install CD - anything after w98 will do.

System restore disks from pre-loads (these wipe the drive and set it to a
factory configuration) won't work.

Do you need to spend the extra money for Pro? That depends on whether you
need to run IIS, use encryption, or connect to network domains. If you
don't, the extra money might be better used elsewhere (for example, more
memory).

HTH
-pk