XP Home to XP Professional... how hard?

Gandalf23

My brother just got a brand new laptop... with XP Home as the operating system.

He was asking me how much hassle it would be to change this to XP Professional. I dont know the reasons he wants to change to XP Pro... something to do with work, but he has to change.

All software would be 100% legal as work are paying for it, and he can have a copy of XP Pro by tomorrow.

So, how big a task is this? Does it involve a full HDD reformat? If not, is he going to have to backup all the drivers the software on laptop at the moment?

Or is it much easier than I think?

The Real B-man

nope if its not a dell laptop then all you do is pop in the cd on the desktop select upgrade follow instructions

Gandalf23

I'm not sure what make laptop is... 99% sure its not Dell.

Is it really that simple?

Can any idiot (namely me) attempt this?

PiE

Yea, it's just a case of putting the CD in and clicking Upgrade. Follow any instructions it gives you. It's made to be idiot-proof

Talliesin

A lot of OEM XP systems come with a backup partition that is a waste of diskspace, esp. since you are forking out for a different OS and won't want to rollback. May as well format, re-partition and claim the space back.

(Though, 90% of support calls will be answered by telling you to rollback using it, so support is now even less use than it was before).

slade_x

Well since that question is already answered, the reason your brother might need XP Professional is that he may have his own user account/logon at work (for email -> MicrosoftExchangeServer) so he would have to logon to the Domain at work via his laptop (dont know why he wouldnt have his own assigned workstation though). Which is not possible in XP home edition

And thats pretty much the only advantage pro has over home

Professional also features some extra networking support/features but you dont actually need them. XP home will network just fine

SouperComputer

yea, he might need to join a Domain which is a feature ripped out from XP Home.

IIRC, XP Pro OEM has no upgrade path from XP Home.

Ie, your only option is a clean install. Its usually fairly painless, but you may need to get some drivers for the laptop for sound/wifi/graphics etc.

Gandalf23

SouperComputer wrote:

your only option is a clean install. Its usually fairly painless, but you may need to get some drivers for the laptop for sound/wifi/graphics etc.

Will these drivers come with the laptop?

Why would there be a HDD partition? (Is this just for rollback???) Does XP home create this by default the first time laptop is booted?

If I dont reformat will this partition still exist in XP Pro? If so, can it be removed easily?

This is beginning to sound messy...

(Sorry for all the questions btw... I'm looking on this as an opportunity to learn )

SouperComputer

Gandalf23 wrote:

Will these drivers come with the laptop?

Why would there be a HDD partition? (Is this just for rollback???) Does XP home create this by default the first time laptop is booted?

If I dont reformat will this partition still exist in XP Pro? If so, can it be removed easily?

This is beginning to sound messy...

(Sorry for all the questions btw... I'm looking on this as an opportunity to learn )

its not too messy.

TBH, the best thing to do the fully reformat & repartition. But as the guys said, this will cause probs with the tech team of your laptop manufacturer.

The other alternative is to have the two OS on the HD at the same time in a dual boot. You can use partiton magic to resize your XP home partition to say 6gb (since you proably wont be using it) and Create a new partition in the free space.

You would then leave any "factory" partitions intact and XP Pro setup will automatically edit the boot.ini to give you an OS selection menu at startup.

The drivers most likely came on a disk. However getting the latest ones from the website usually is a better plan.

Another thing to consider is that some computer manufacturers write the drivers so that they run on XP home only. Meaning you have to go to the Graphics\modem\nic makers website

Surely your brother's company have an IT dept or contactor?

Gandalf23

SouperComputer wrote:

Surely your brother's company have an IT dept or contactor?

Yep, they do.

But like I said, this is an interesting topic, and I'm using it as an opportunity to learn about this stuff .

Apologies again for all the questions.

SouperComputer

stop apologising.

if I didnt want to answer, i wouldnt post!

petes

Souper. It has an upgrade path. I have upgraded XP home to professional on a laptop. Was no problems at all. It was for joining a domain. I wish people would consult me before buying there own computer then asking.."How come I cant join the domain?".

SouperComputer

petes wrote:

Souper. It has an upgrade path. I have upgraded XP home to professional on a laptop. Was no problems at all. It was for joining a domain. I wish people would consult me before buying there own computer then asking.."How come I cant join the domain?".

was it retail or OEM?

Maybe M$ have changed things.

petes

SouperComputer wrote:

was it retail or OEM?

Maybe M$ have changed things.

Hmm not sure. The guy wouldnt know too much about computers so Im guessing OEM.

SouperComputer

IIRC retail does it but OEM wont.

cap'n midnight is good with this stuff.

petes

Think wires crossed. If you buy an oem xp pro this cannot be used to upgrade previous versions of Windows. But the retail can. Damn drinking on Thursday night!!

http://www.mvps.org/marksxp/WindowsXP/upgrade.php

peepsbates

Talliesin wrote:

A lot of OEM XP systems come with a backup partition that is a waste of diskspace, esp. since you are forking out for a different OS and won't want to rollback. May as well format, re-partition and claim the space back.

(Though, 90% of support calls will be answered by telling you to rollback using it, so support is now even less use than it was before).

What he said