Upgrade from xp home to xp profesional

[Lynnie]

I just got a new laptop with xp home installed but would
like xp profesional. Is there an upgrade or do I need to
purchase the full blown xp prof?

 

[Harv]

I bought the upgrade box. I didn't encounter any problems. I did have to
look around on the original restore cds for a few drivers but thats about
all. I chose the install rather than the upgrade. Hope this helps. Harv

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In

I just got a new laptop with xp home installed but would
like xp profesional. Is there an upgrade or do I need to
purchase the full blown xp prof?

Yes, you can upgrade XP Home to Professional. 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).

But are you sure you want to do this? Are you aware that XP Home
and Professional are identical except that Professional includes
a few features (mostly related to security and networking)
missing from Home? Most home users don't need and would never use
these extra features and will see no benefits by upgrading.

 

[Rice71]

I agree with Ken Blake that Win XP Pro is not that much of
an improvement over Win XP Home. However, I disagree that
the upgrade works. If you choose the upgrade option from
the Win XP Pro setup it will leave you with a computer
that will not boot. Your only recourse is to do a full
install of Win XP Pro, including reformating your hard
drive. Then, assuming you backed up all your files
beforehand, you'll have to reinstall all your programs and
recreate all your profiles. The effort is definitely not
worth the added functionality of XP Pro. I'm not the one
who fell for the "Just do an upgrade" trap.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In

I agree with Ken Blake that Win XP Pro is not that much of
an improvement over Win XP Home.

Well, thank you, but you're agreeing with something I didn't say.

How much an improvement it is depends on *your* needs. If, for
example, you need to join a domain, if you need to run IIS, if
you need support for two processors, etc., it's not only an
improvement, it's required.

What I said is that *most* home users don't need these features
or the other extra features in XP Professional. Some home users,
and *many* business users, do need them.

So the point I was making was not that nobody should get XP
Professional, but that, particularly if you are a home user, you
should clearly understand what the differences are, and be sure
that its extra features are worth the extra money to *you*.

However, I disagree that
the upgrade works.

If you say that it didn't work for you, I of course believe you.
But your experience is contrary to that of the many thousands of
others who have done it successfully. It not only works, but it's
the easiest and most likely successful of all upgrades.

If it didn't work for you, when it has for countless others, you
should be asking yourself what you did wrong instead of blaming
the product.

 

[Gordon]

I agree with Ken Blake that Win XP Pro is not that much of
an improvement over Win XP Home.

It's not DESIGNED to be an "improvement". It's the same OS but for different
scenarios.

However, I disagree that
the upgrade works. If you choose the upgrade option from
the Win XP Pro setup it will leave you with a computer
that will not boot.

Then there must be something wrong with either your machine or the CD you
bought - the two OSs are EXACTLY identical.

 

[Guest]

Then there must be something wrong with either your

machine or the CD you bought - the two OSs are EXACTLY
identical.

All I know is that I have spoken with two people, one the
a PC tech support where I work, who encountered the same
problem when trying to upgrade their home PCs from Win XP
Home to Win XP Pro. These were three completely different
PC configurations using CDs purchased from different
sources. So you must be right, it has to be the fault of
the hardware or the CDs, because it can't possible be the
fault of the software.

 

[Rice71]

As far as I can tell, the only mistake I made was
believing the documentation that said the upgrade was "the
easiest and most likely successful of all upgrades". As I
meant to say at the end of my post, I'm not the only one
who was unable to get the Win XP Home to Win XP Pro
upgrade to work. In fact, I haven't been able to find
anyone who tried it and got it to work without having to
do a complete install and wipe out their files and
settings. There's even a post on this very discussion
group by someone who is having the same problem that I
encountered. As far as the 'thousands of others' who got
it to work. I believe they exist as much as I believe
that there are WMDs in Iraq.

Also, sorry about trying to agree with you. I'll try not
to make that mistake again either.

(Sorry also for the duplicate post. I can see that this
discussion board is like most Microsoft software, user
unfriendly.)

 

[Guest]

thanks for all you're input.

 

[Steve C. Ray]

Well now you have found someone that upgraded to Pro from Home with no
problems. And if you used a news reader instead of the CDO interface you
would find that this is a user friendly group.

 

[Don Burnette]

Really?

How odd. Upgrading Home to Pro should be one of the easiest upgrades to
perform, seeing as how they are basically the same with Pro only having a
few added features, namely related to security.
I upgraded Home to Pro with no issues at all, it was quite painless.
Now, when I upgraded from Win 98 to XP Home, I formatted and did a clean
install on a new hard drive.

Irregardless, I would still recommend backing up important data files in
case something does go wrong.


Don Burnette

 

[Spinner]

I agree.
I have upgraded several computers, including several laptops from home to
pro and it was one of the easiest upgrades I have ever done. Rice71 telling
people it will not work is just plain wrong.

 

[Plato]

I agree.
I have upgraded several computers, including several laptops from home to
pro and it was one of the easiest upgrades I have ever done. Rice71 telling
people it will not work is just plain wrong.

I've upgraded thousands of PC OS's in the last ten years. You MUST have
your important stuff backed up and the backup tested first before you
take the plunge.

 

[Alex Nichol]

I just got a new laptop with xp home installed but would
like xp profesional. Is there an upgrade or do I need to
purchase the full blown xp prof?

You have to get the regular Upgrade CD or XP Pro - same as for upgrading
Win98/ME/NT/2000, though it does not mention Home. Make sure that there
is a Pro only facility that you really *need* - don't do it just because
it sounds macho

 

[Rice71]

-----Original Message-----
I agree.
I have upgraded several computers, including several
laptops from home to pro and it was one of the easiest
upgrades I have ever done. Rice71 telling
people it will not work is just plain wrong.

I not saying that it won't work, just that it's not
the 'easy and painless' operation that Microsoft claims it
to be. I realize that any operating system upgrade has
certain risks associated with it. I've upgraded from Win
3.11 to Win 95 to Win 98 to Win XP Home and all of them
had problems and obstacles that had to be overcome, but
none of those upgrades ever left me with a completely
unbootable and unusable computer like what happened to me
and the other two people I referenced when we tried to
upgrade from Win XP Home to Win XP Pro. Whenever a
previous upgrade encountered problems, such as being
unable to find drivers or entry points in DLLs, like what
happened with the WinXP Home to Pro upgrade, it allowed me
to back out to where I started. A failed WinXP upgrade
leaves you with computer that, on rebooting, attempts to
restart the upgrade process, which encounters the same
errors as before and eventually hangs with 13 minutes to
go in the upgrade. Booting from the CD and attempting a
repair simply repeats the process all over again with the
same result. The only thing that seemed to work for the
others and me was to do a complete reinstall, which
destroys all out programs, profiles, and settings.

Since I did a complete backup and verify of all files as
well as the system state before I attempted the upgrade,
it seemed to me that starting from a clean install
wouldn't all that big a problem. Again I was mislead by
the documentation, since restoring all my files and system
settings left me with computer that spontaneously reboots
whenever Win XP tries to reload.

I finally gave up, reinstalled Win XP Home with a hard
drive reformat, restored all my files but not the system
state, and am currently in the process of reapplying all
the Win XP and IE patches and reinstalling my
applications. I plan to use the Win XP Pro CD as a
coaster which, as far as I can tell, is the only safe
thing that it can be used for.

You would think that, wouldn't you? (see above)

It would be nice if backing up your system settings
accomplished something useful as well, but it apears that
the backup system that comes with Win XP is no more useful
for that purpose than irregardless is a real word.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In

I not saying that it won't work, just that it's not
the 'easy and painless' operation that Microsoft claims it
to be.

Here are your exact words: "However, I disagree that the upgrade
works."

 

[Guest]

Here are your exact words: "However, I disagree that the

upgrade works."

OK, my bad. I meant to say that I disagree that it
*always* works.

Still, although a smooth, uneventful upgrade is never a
given, or even an expectation, one would think that a well-
written upgrade script would be robust enough to detect
when an error has occurred and allow a rollback to a
previous functioning state. Endless upgrade loops and a
system so corrupted that it can't boot and can't even be
repaired are not what anyone should expect from what is
supposed to be "the easiest and most likely successful of
all upgrades". As I said, although there is no guarantee
that any upgrade will be successful, it shouldn't destroy
the previous system, especially if the person performing
the upgrade is knowledgeable and follows the instructions
to the letter. It would also be nice if following the
recommendation of performing a complete system backup
before attempting the upgrade actually allowed you to
restore things to the way they were before the upgrade was
attempted.

In addition, blaming the customer for the results of
running poorly written, poorly tested, and poorly
documented software is just what I would expect from
Microsoft.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In (e-mail address removed)

OK, my bad. I meant to say that I disagree that it
*always* works.

If you're looking for guarantees, *nothing* "always works."
However, whether you believe it or not, the vast majority of
people who have upgraded from XP Home to XP Professional have had
no problems doing so. You are in the distinct minority here.

When you are in the minority, you need to be asking yourself what
you might have done wrong or what's unusual about your system,
not blaming the product or the process.

 

[Spinner]

In (e-mail address removed)

I'm replying to Ken's post since Rice71's is not appearing.

Rice71,
Your trying to back peddle.
You said, and I quote:

"If you choose the upgrade option from
the Win XP Pro setup it will leave you with a computer
that will not boot. Your only recourse is to do a full
install of Win XP Pro, including reformating your hard
drive."

That's a pretty straight forward statement not easily misunderstood.
If you meant it "could" leave a computer unbootable and "could" require a
clean install
that would be more accurate, but that is clearly not what you said.

 

[Rice71]

OK, since it's obvious that your main agenda is to nit-
pick the semantics and phraseology of my original posts,
I'll take it all back. My only excuse is that I was angry
and frustrated after spending a whole weekend trying to
pick up the pieces left by this "easiest and most likely
successful of all upgrades" and was faced with the fact
that in order to get my PC working again I was going to
have to do a reinstall of the operating system and then
have to reinstall and reconfigure all my applications.
This despite having followed all the instructions and
recommended precautions, including doing a full backup
before beginning.

As I said in my previous post (you have read my other
posts, haven't you?) I know that there is no guarantee
that an OS upgrade will go smoothly, or even be
successful. In fact, my experience with previous upgrades
leads me to expect that there are going to be problems
that will have to be resolved. What I do expect, however,
is that the upgrade process will be robust enough to
detect when there are problems and to give the user the
ability to either resolve the problem or to back out of
the update so that they can investigate the cause of the
problem. Not to crash or hang and leave the computer in
an unbootable and unrepairable state. The fact that you
consider that possibility as totally acceptable says a
great deal about the level of quality you're willing to
accept in software.

I realize now that there must be something in my system
configuration that both the Home and Pro versions of the
Win XP upgrade/repair process doesn't like, although it's
something the install process doesn't have a problem
with. The thing is, I'll never know what it was or how I
could have anticipated and corrected the problem, thanks
to the fragile nature of the upgrade/repair process.

I also noticed that while in 'blame the customer' mode you
have chosen to ignore the technical issues I've raised, as
well as my original post asking for assistance in using
the backup I made to fix the damage done by the attempted
upgrade and restoring my system to its previous state.
You've also ignored the post by 'Jay Jay' describing the
exact same problem I encountered while attempting to run
the upgrade and repair processes.

As a postscript, after reinstalling Win XP Home Tuesday
night, yesterday I went to the Windows Update web page in
order to reapply all the patches and updates for Windows
and IE that have been released, and applied, in the 18
months since I purchased Win XP. The first that I
attempted to download and install was the SP1 update to
Win XP. Halfway through the process it hung and left the
PC in the all-too-familiar unbootable and unrepairable
state that the upgrade/repair process tended to leave it
in. I reinstalled Win XP last night, but I'm not sure
what to do now, any ideas?

Also, I copied some Word documents on my home PC to a
floppy disk last night after reinstalling Win XP and when
I try to open them on my Win 2000 PC at work using Word
2000 I am unable get them to open. No error messages or
warnings. Just the floppy drive churning for several
minutes and then Word shuts down. Any idea what I'm doing
wrong here, since it can't be anything to do with the
software, right?