Upgrade to XP Pro

[Guest]

Running XP Home with SP2
Wanyt to upgrade to XP Pro with SP2
What upgrade product should be used?

 

[DL]

Depends as to whether you have an XP Home cd or simply a recovery cd.

 

[Guest]

Depends as to whether you have an XP Home cd or simply a recovery cd.

I didn't know that. AFAIK, XP Home to XP Pro is a perfectly valid
upgrade path and there wouldn't be a problem with any XP Professional
upgrade distro (retail).

 

[Mike Hall, MS-MVP]

A manufacturer recovery CD will not validate an upgrade XP CD in the event
that you need to re-install.. only purchase the UPGRADE XP version if you
have a genuine Win 98/ME/2000/XP Home CD..

Also ensure that you have a need for XP Pro.. other than some network
security and the ability to join a domain, there may not be much point in
executing the upgrade..

For more..

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_home_pro.asp

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Depends as to whether you have an XP Home cd or simply a recovery cd.

It doesn't matter. what kind of CD he has, because a CD isn't required to do
an upgrade. He needs either a regular XP Professional Upgrade CD or a Full
retail CD. Anything but an OEM CD will do an upgrade. Since the Upgrade CD
is considerably cheaper than the Full Retail CD, that's what he should buy.

But to Bill H, 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.

For details go to

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_home_pro.asp

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/whichxp.asp>

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/howtobuy/choosing2.asp

Also note another point, not included in any of the above: Professional
allows ten concurrent network connections, and Home only five.

 

[DL]

Yes it does, a recovery cd is not a qualifying product when a renistall is
required.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Yes it does, a recovery cd is not a qualifying product when a
renistall is required.

No, the only case when a CD of a qualifying product is an issue is when you
are doing a clean installation with an Upgrade CD. He asked about doing an
upgrade, not a clean installation. What kind of CD he has doesn't matter
because the previous version's CD will not be used for an upgrade.

It's not pertinent to his question, but an aside, let me also point out the
following: You can also do a clean installation if you have an OEM restore
CD of a previous qualifying version. It's more complicated, but it *can* be
done. First restore from the Restore CD. Then run the XP upgrade CD from
within that restored system, and change from Upgrade to New Install. When it
asks where, press Esc to delete the partition and start over.

 

[DL]

I don't propose to split hairs, but it seems to me very pertinent

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I don't propose to split hairs, but it seems to me very pertinent

It's not pertinent because it's about doing a clean installation. This
thread has been about doing an upgrade installation from the very beginning.