Unistalling Windows XP Home and replacing with Professional Edition

[Aashish]

I want to unistall the Windows XP Home Edition I
currently have in my Dell Laptop and replace that with
the Windows XP Professional Edition. I do not want to go
through the task of installing all the programs already
in my computer. I also have a lot of programs which I
downloaded from the internet like Norton Anti virus which
has already taken a lot of time and don't want to go
through again.

So please advise me on how to safely unistalling Home
Edition and replacing it with Professional Edition
without losing any data and if possible without messing
in the registry.

 

[Mike Kolitz]

No need to uninstall XP Home - you can upgrade directly from XP Home Edition
to XP Professional. If you do this, you won't lose your installed programs,
either.

--
Mike Kolitz MCSE 2000
MS-MVP - Windows Setup and Deployment

Remember to check Windows Update often,
and apply the patches marked as Critical!
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com

 

[hondaman]

You should be able to do an upgrade install if the version of XP Pro you'll
be using is retail instead another OEM disk like what dell uses for their
home edition.

-Jeff

 

[John Coode]

No need to uninstall XP Home - you can upgrade directly from XP Home Edition
to XP Professional. If you do this, you won't lose your installed programs,
either.

Is it possible to do this with an education licensed copy
of XP Pro or does it have to be a full-price edition?
John

 

[S.Sengupta]

-----Original Message-----
No need to uninstall XP Home - you can upgrade directly from XP Home Edition
to XP Professional. If you do this, you won't lose your installed programs,
either.

--
Mike Kolitz MCSE 2000
MS-MVP - Windows Setup and Deployment

Remember to check Windows Update often,
and apply the patches marked as Critical!
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com




.

Hi!
There is no need to uninstall XP Home.XP PRP CD will
automatically upgrade it, and your programs will also
remain intact.But better is to keep backup of your
programs.
regards/
ssg/pronetworks.org

 

[Mike Kolitz]

I don't think that there's any reason why an academic version wouldn't
upgrade XP Home. The only version of XP that can't do upgrades is the OEM
version - it's designed for clean installations only.

--
Mike Kolitz MCSE 2000
MS-MVP - Windows Setup and Deployment

Remember to check Windows Update often,
and apply the patches marked as Critical!
http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com

 

[Ken Blake]

In

I want to unistall the Windows XP Home Edition I
currently have in my Dell Laptop and replace that with
the Windows XP Professional Edition. I do not want to go
through the task of installing all the programs already
in my computer. I also have a lot of programs which I
downloaded from the internet like Norton Anti virus which
has already taken a lot of time and don't want to go
through again.

So please advise me on how to safely unistalling Home
Edition and replacing it with Professional Edition
without losing any data and if possible without messing
in the registry.

There is no way to do what you want. If you uninstall XP Home,
the registry will be gone, and therefore all your installed
programs will be gone too.

But what you want to do is also not necessary. You can upgrade to
XP Professional over the top of XP Home. There is no special
upgrade version just for this, but the regular XP Professional
Upgrade works fine (although it doesn't say so on the box).

However there are no guarantees against data loss. However
unlikely, it's always possible that something might go wrong. For
that reason it's prudent to be sure you have a backup of anything
you can't afford to lose before beginning.