XP home duplicate installation

[muffi]

I originally had XP professional installed by my office
but could not get the 2 home machines networked. My son
overwrote with his XP home not realising that you are only
allowed one copy per machine. I now cannot get access to
either uninstall as I need to install a new version of XP
professional (for which I have a product key)

I don't know what to do

 

[Yves Leclerc]

You will have to reformat your son's XP Home PC or buy a new retail XP Pro
kit. Then follow the directions to do a repair reinstall of XP Pro (found
in this newgroup). Microsoft does sell the extra product key but it could
take several days for you to receive it.

Y.

 

[Alex Nichol]

I originally had XP professional installed by my office
but could not get the 2 home machines networked. My son
overwrote with his XP home not realising that you are only
allowed one copy per machine. I now cannot get access to
either uninstall as I need to install a new version of XP
professional (for which I have a product key)

You can't uninstall, but you should be able to run the new CD from the
present state and take Install - Upgrade.

If things have been left too long so you cannot run that, you can do an
entirely clean reinstall and start over (but will lose data and
installed software. Boot the new CD direct. Enter Setup, and after the
license agreement take New Install. When it asks you to confirm where,
hit ESC; select and delete the current partition and make a new RAW one
to be formatted at the next stage

The important point is the delete. Without that it will just go ahead
and make a new install over the top of the old one