XP Home to XP Pro Upgrade Fatal Problem

[Steve Weinhold]

I tried to upgrade my daughter's HP Pavillion laptop OS
from XP Home to XP Pro (this is a requirement at her
college). The installation hung with the error
message "Setup failed to install the product catalogs.
This is a fatal error". The setup log file also has
error messages about failure to remove product catalog
IEEXCEP.CAT, failure to remove product catalog SP1.CAT,
that the signature for Windows XP Professional Upgrade is
invalid, error code 426. Rebooting resumes installation
and the same set of error messages again appear. I am
well and truly stuck here. All help is greatly
appreciated.

 

[Nicholas]

CAUSE
This behavior can occur if Setup does not delete all of the files in the WinDir\System32\Catroot2 folder during removal of the earlier version of Windows. WinDir is the Windows installation folder.
RESOLUTION
To work around this behavior, rename the %WinDir%\System32\Catroot2 folder either by using the Windows XP user interface or at a command prompt.

For more information about how to rename folders by using the Windows XP user interface, click Start, click Help and Support, type renaming folders, press ENTER, and then click Change the name of a file or folder.

To rename the %WinDir%\System32\Catroot2 folder at a command prompt, follow these steps:
1.. While you are in setup and while the error message is displayed on the screen, press SHIFT+F10 to start a command prompt. At the command prompt, type cd\windows\system32\, and then press ENTER.
2.. Type rename catroot2 catold, press ENTER, and then restart the computer. Try again to finish the upgrade.

--
Nicholas

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| I tried to upgrade my daughter's HP Pavillion laptop OS
| from XP Home to XP Pro (this is a requirement at her
| college). The installation hung with the error
| message "Setup failed to install the product catalogs.
| This is a fatal error". The setup log file also has
| error messages about failure to remove product catalog
| IEEXCEP.CAT, failure to remove product catalog SP1.CAT,
| that the signature for Windows XP Professional Upgrade is
| invalid, error code 426. Rebooting resumes installation
| and the same set of error messages again appear. I am
| well and truly stuck here. All help is greatly
| appreciated.