XP Professional

[Shawn]

I purchased a 6301rsh Compaq Presario from Radioshack in
my area that came with Microsoft XP Home, and shortly
after that I had pruchased XP Professional because I
needed to create a home network (with my two laptops).
However, everytime I install my XPro, when it asks me do
I want to upgrade XP home or fresh install I choose
upgrade, but when it completes the install, and I am back
in windows all of my compaq sound, monitor, keyboard, and
modem drivers provided by compaq are gone! Please help
me! I called the Customer Service at Microsoft at 1-800-
936-5700, and a polite women helped me. She said, (after
looking up my product key) that my CD is to say
distrubtion with a New PC. But it doesn't, say that.
Please help ME!!!!! E-mail me at (e-mail address removed), with
the answer if possible. Shawn

 

[purplehaz]

1 - you don't need xp pro to network. XP home does it fine.
2 - just reinstall the drivers that you need from compaq's website.
3 - MS will not help you cause you bought an OEM computer. MS does not
support oem computers, the oem does.

 

[Bob Knowlden]

Which product key are you referring to? The XP Home provided by Compaq is
probably an OEM version. The copy of XP Pro sounds like it must be retail
(as OEM versions are not supposed to support an upgrade installation, only a
new one). I hope that it's a full version (rather than upgrade), or that you
have a copy of some supported "qualifying media" in case you ever want to do
a clean installation of XP (say, on a replacement hard drive).

I'm surprised that an XP Pro upgrade got rid of the drivers from XP Home -
they use the same drivers.

If you need to re-install the drivers, they are available for download from
www.hp.com. (Notice the "support and drivers" button on the lower right of
the page.) I hope that you have a simple way to download them, and load them
onto the PC.

You have probably wasted your money on the XP Pro upgrade, unfortunately. XP
Home supports simple networking. It does not support joining a domain, which
is of interest mainly on large (corporate) networks. I haven't done any
networking myself, but the support in XP Home is supposed to be at least as
good as in Win98.

Good luck.

Bob Knowlden

Address may be altered to avoid spam. Replace nkbob with bobkn.