XP Home (OEM) in place upgrade to XP Professional using Full Retail XP Pro CD

[jdr.smith]

Hi,

I know this has probably been asked before, but I can'r see clear
clarification of exactly what I need the answer to.

Plus I've just spent over two hours speaking to someone at Microsoft
who doesn;t seem that sure themselves ( and Dell Tech Support as
well )

We have a Dell PC with and OEM version of Windows XP Home Edition SP2
installed.

We want to do an in place upgrade this to Windows XP Professional SP2

We have obtained a Full Retail version of Windows XP Professional N
SP2 in order to try and accomplish this.

When we attempt to do an in place upgrade from the Windows desktop we
get the following message:

"Windows XP Setup does not support upgrading from Windows XP Home
Edition to Windows XP Professional"

According to the person we spoke to at Microsoft we should be able to
do this, and the Dell Technician.

We have uninstalled Internet Explorer 7.0 and been through various
other trouble shooting steps but all to no avail.

Could it be to do with the Windows XP Professional N SP2 CD being the
new 'N' version, ie without Media Player when the XP Home which we are
wanting to upgrade does include it ?

So has anyone got a definitive answer to the question:

Can you use a Full Retail Windows XP Professional N SP2 CD to do an in
place upgrade on a Dell pre-installed OEM Windows XP Home Edition SP2

As an aside, we just got back to base and tried to do an upgrade using
our MSDN Windows XP Professional SP2 CD....and this would appear to
work, we do get an upgrade option..obviously can't use this..

So we suspect that it may be something to do with the new N version..

Anybody care to comment ?

Jim.

 

[Gordon]

Hi,

I know this has probably been asked before, but I can'r see clear
clarification of exactly what I need the answer to.

Plus I've just spent over two hours speaking to someone at Microsoft
who doesn;t seem that sure themselves ( and Dell Tech Support as
well )

We have a Dell PC with and OEM version of Windows XP Home Edition SP2
installed.

We want to do an in place upgrade this to Windows XP Professional SP2

Not an answer as such, but may I as why you need to use Pro? The only major
differences between Pro and Home is that Pro can join a domain, has some
slightly enhanced security settings, and allows 10 concurrent connections
rather than the 5 in Home. if you don't need any of these functions, then I
suggest you reconsider whether you actually NEED Pro.....