Upgrade Home to Pro using legit OEM ?

[DistractedDan]

Hi folks
Im thinking of moving my home PC to my office (and getting a new laptop
for home !) so I need to upgrade my Home installation (which includes
SP2) to Pro so I can join our network domain.

The standard upgrade seems prohibitivly expensive. There are tons of
educational versions on the Net, but I would prefer to remain "at least
reasonably" legit.

If I buy some qualifying hardware (a new mouse/keyboard/hardrive) and
get an OEM version of XP with it, will I be able to use this OEM XP to
perform the upgrade ?

Cheers !

 

[Chuck]

If you bought a new HD, and installed the new OEM XP on it, with the
original HD disconnected, you should not have any major installation
problems, other than reinstalling all the applications. There are other
ways, but they may involve you in the darker side of windows installs.

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

No. You need to purchase a "Retail Upgrade" [boxed version]
of Windows XP Professional in order to upgrade over
an existing Windows XP Home Edition installation.
A OEM version of Windows XP does not allow for
upgrading, only a "Clean Install" which requires a reformat
of your hard drive.

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows - Shell/User
Microsoft Community Newsgroups
news://msnews.microsoft.com/

---------------------------------------------------------------------------­----------------

:

| Hi folks
| Im thinking of moving my home PC to my office (and getting a new laptop
| for home !) so I need to upgrade my Home installation (which includes
| SP2) to Pro so I can join our network domain.
|
| The standard upgrade seems prohibitivly expensive. There are tons of
| educational versions on the Net, but I would prefer to remain "at least
| reasonably" legit.
|
| If I buy some qualifying hardware (a new mouse/keyboard/hardrive) and
| get an OEM version of XP with it, will I be able to use this OEM XP to
| perform the upgrade ?
|
| Cheers !