Uninstalling XP Prof / Roll back to XP Home

[Guest]

Trying to help a friend - he has an emachine that had XP home - tried to
install XP professional - never registered and entered the key - of course
now he can't get in because it of course wants the registration and of course
lost the key in his recent move - I've tried to go into safe mode as
administrator and restore but it won't go back that far. Can it be rolled
back somehow so that all his files are saved or do we have to start from
scratch with Fdisk and his emachine software? If I put his original emachine
disk in will it erase all his files and start over?

 

[Michael Stevens]

In

Trying to help a friend - he has an emachine that had XP home - tried
to install XP professional - never registered and entered the key -
of course now he can't get in because it of course wants the
registration and of course lost the key in his recent move - I've
tried to go into safe mode as administrator and restore but it won't
go back that far. Can it be rolled back somehow so that all his
files are saved or do we have to start from scratch with Fdisk and
his emachine software? If I put his original emachine disk in will it
erase all his files and start over?

His only recourse is to find the key or backup his files and run the
eMachines restore disks. You can't go back to Home from Pro.
--
Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP
(e-mail address removed)
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com
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[Bruce Chambers]

Trying to help a friend - he has an emachine that had XP home - tried to
install XP professional - never registered and entered the key - of course
now he can't get in because it of course wants the registration and of course
lost the key in his recent move - I've tried to go into safe mode as
administrator and restore but it won't go back that far. Can it be rolled
back somehow so that all his files are saved or do we have to start from
scratch with Fdisk and his emachine software? If I put his original emachine
disk in will it erase all his files and start over?

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


--

Bruce Chambers

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