Thanks for providing more information, LURKER.
My comments are perhaps more directed to *other* lurkers who have not
bought a Retail CD yet. I still think an upgrade to XP Pro is not
necessary. Comments inline.
Thanks for all the suggestions. I have pondered and thought out all.
The Michael Stephens site I had already found.
Why do I want to do it?
1. XP Pro has more security option with files/folders. At times I
need the SECURITY tab / ADVANCED button to "take ownership" of a
resource on a USB temporarily (or removable tray)connected hard drive
that comes from another system, usually a VISTA system. I sometimes
need access to the LOCAL folder of the profile to forcefully remove a
trojan.
I'm pretty sure, you can do this (tabs and buttons, that is) with XP
Home. I'll have to research this further, or perhaps someone else will
chime in.
A much better system to deal with trojans (other than safe hex!) is to
regularly image your hard drive. That way, if a nasty slips through,
there is no need to forcefully do *anything*. Instead, merely restore
the image.
2. Get legal again. My DEL OEM XP home CD disk from 2002 uses a key
that is part of a family of now invalid keys.
You are either mistaken or confused. This is most definitely *not* the
case! *Every* Dell CD contains a golden master key that is BIOS-locked
to enable SLP (system-locked preinstallation). That is, as long as you
use a Dell CD on a Dell PC, all is good. You don't even need to enter a
Product Key.
I do seem to vaguely recall there was an issue with old Dell CDs (Gold
level) and SP3, but I'd have to look that up, too. But, these
keys/licenses are still valid!!!
and I also will want to upgrade the motherboard/CPU again, soon.
Okay, that changes things. If you are upgrading to non-Dell hardware,
Dell (the OEM) will no longer consider this PC to be the same one. That
is, the BIOS-locked (locked to the old CMOS chip, that is) SLP won't
work. Still, a generic OEM CD of XP Home (instead of the more expensive
Retail CD of XP Pro) would work just fine in this situation. The proviso
is you shouldn't purchase an OEM CD if you are fairly sure you will want
to install XP on another PC eventually (since an OEM license is not
transferrable, but a Retail license is).
Of the suggestions here, I think maybe the slipstream suggestion is
the most obvious. There is no SP3 update listed in the changes, but
there are 47 updates since Feb 2009, including several "Hot Fixes".
Uninstall of all those does not seem like a reasonable endeavor.
Slipstreaming is always recommended because this way you have the most
up-to-date installation CD, which is useful for *both* Clean and Repair
Installs.
When you say "[t]here is no SP3 update listed in the changes," do you
mean you are running at the SP2 level? If that is the case, you should
be able to perform an inplace upgrade after all (using a CD at the SP2
level). Of course, you will need to apply SP3 afterwards and subsequent
security updates (only the critical ones!).
To make it work best, you should uninstall IE7 or IE8 if you have either
so that you have IE at its correct SP3-prisitine level: IE6.
Then again, Clean Installs are known to provide you with the best base
to work with (especially if you have had trojans in the past!).
