Upgrading XP Home to XP Pro

[Ken Blake, MVP]

If he uses a Full Install of XP Pro instead of XP Pro Upgrade, won't
that install over write both Program Files and Windows ? If so, then
he would loose all of his Apps.

You are making the mistaken assumption that a Full version of Windows XP can
only do a clean installation and not an upgrade. That's isn't correct. In
fact both the Full version and the Upgrade version can do either a clean
installation or an upgrade. The only difference between the two is that, to
do a clean installation with the Upgrade version, you must insert the CD of
a previous qualifying version when prompted to do so, as proof of ownership.

The only version that's restricted in what it can do is the OEM version,
which can only do a clean installation, and not an upgrade.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Hi Ken, thanks for the great info.

You're welcome. Glad to help.

My main concern is to make sure
that I will not have to reinstall the applications. The laptop
already came loaded with a bunch of applications. Will the direct
upgrade preserve those?

Yes, but...


....there are never guarantees that it always works perfectly, or that you
can't accidentally click on the wrong button. 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.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

XP Home is not even near being identical to XP Professional.
Expecially as far as security is concerned. And many more.

It is *absolutely* identical at its base. There are however extra features
in Professional, as I said. And also as I said, many of those extra features
are security-oriented.

If those features are important to you, then XP Professional is the right
choice for you. However they are not important to most home users, and would
go unused in most home home environments. That's why XP Home is the right
choice for most (but not all) home users.

 

[Kerry Brown]

I agree with Bruce. Either way will work but starting the process from
within XP Home there is less chance of making the wrong decision and
accidentally doing a clean install instead of an upgrade. If you are
upgrading from an older version of Windows I like to boot from the XP CD.
From XP Home I do it from within XP Home. I have done this upgrade for many
customers. Dell for some reason sells business' XP Home. When they start
using a server with Active Directory they need to upgrade to XP Pro. I have
done this hundreds of times. The only time I had a problem was when I forgot
to disable Norton antivirus. It was easily fixable but to make sure you
don't have a problem do a backup first and uninstall any antivirus programs.