Upgrading Windows Home with SP2 to Professional 1

[dluby]

Hi,

I have a PC with Windows XP Home (SP2) and I was wondering if there is any issue trying to use an Original XP Professional CD (not an upgrade version and its about 2 years old) to try and upgrade my home edition?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Damian

 

[bcastner]

If it is a Retail XP Professional CD, barring a licensing issue, there is not a problem using this to upgrade XP Home. The XP Upgrade CD was offered as a lower cost alternative to the Full license.

But, there are XP CDs and there are XP CDs. See my faq: faq779-4004

 

[dluby]

After trying to run the XP Professional install CD (the CD says version 2002) I get the following message:

"Setup cannot continue because the version of Windows on your computer is newer than the version on the CD.

Warning: If you decide to delete the newer version of Windows that is currently installed on your computer, the files and settings cannot be recovered."

I did not go ahead with the installation as I don't want to loose my settings, any ideas?

 

[bcastner]

Carey Frisch MVP wrote in the newsgroups better than I could:

Unless SP2 is integrated into XP Pro, then one cannot
upgrade an existing XP Home w/SP2 installation using
a non-SP2 version of XP Pro. What you need to do is
create a SP2 "slipstreamed" version of XP Pro, then use
the new CD to upgrade over XP Home w/SP2.

You have two options:

1. Uninstall SP2 from XP Home, then upgrade to XP Pro.

or

2. Create a SP2 slipstreamed version of XP Pro (preferred)
and use the new XP Pro w/SP2 to upgrade.

Either one of the following utilities makes slipstreaming
(integrating) SP2 into Windows XP a breeze:

Windows Slipstreaming and Bootable CD Guide

http://www.msfn.org/articles.php?action=show&showarticle=49

Information on AutoStreamer 1.0

http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=188337&st=0&#entry245

Windows XP Service Pack 2 - Direct Download

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...BE-3B8E-4F30-8245-9E368D3CDB5A&displaylang=en