Upgrading to Retail WinXP Pro on top of an OEM Installation of Hom

  • Thread starter Thread starter Shyster
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Shyster

I have a sony laptop that came with a pre-installed copy of WinXP Home
Edition - obviously, an OEM license.

I would now like to upgrade the OS to WinXP Professional and need to know if
I can simply purchase a retail upgrade package for WinXP Professional, or if
I will be required to purchase a new retail license for WinXP Professional.

As far as I know, at this late date, the OEM (Sony) doesn't provide any sort
of upgrade path such as this, I no longer get any active support from Sony
(it's been 5 years since I bought the system), and I have no desire to do any
more business than is absolutely necessary with Sony regarding this laptop.

So, my question is, briefly, can I install a retail upgrade license for
WinXP Pro on top of my original OEM installation of WinXP Home Edition, or
must a purchase an entirely new retail license for WinXP Pro?
 
A retail upgrade will work, I assume you have origonal Sony cd's in case you
should ever need to reinstall your upgrade, if you dont you wont be able to
reinstal
I assume you need Pro for networking/Domain reasons
 
DL,

Thanks for the quick response; I really appreciate the help. I do have the
original Sony CDs (which give me a circa-2003 factory-fresh install; not a
lot of fun since using them ends up requiring about two nights of serial
updating); however, as my parenthetical indicates, relying on them is a pain
so I've gone to making hdd images I can restore from instead.

I am contemplating going to WinXP Pro for networking reasons, although I
haven't made up my mind yet; I asked now primarily so that I have an idea of
the parameters I have to work within.

Basically, I have an old desktop running WinXP Pro that I would like to use
as the foundation of a small network, as well as a file server and internal
http server. I will be getting a new laptop for myself in a month or so
which will come with WinXP Pro installed (still a few sellers left who offer
WinXP ;^) ). That leaves two other computers unaccounted for that
currently run WinXP Home Edition - my wife's laptop and one other system.
The last system I'm not too worried about - it could be put to use or it
could gather dust as far as I'm concerned.

Thus, unless I upgrade my wife's laptop from WinXP H-E to WinXP Pro, her
system will be the odd computer out in what would otherwise be a WinXP Pro
network. I did find the earlier post from 2004 by Carrie Frisch with the
link to the MS knowledgebase article on setting up a network with WinXP H-E
(which I haven't read through yet, but I will later today), so I will explore
the possibility of setting up a network with what I've got (I'm not quite as
dumb as I sometimes seem, and would prefer to avoid unnecessary costs if
avoidance is reasonable). However, in the event that I decide that I want to
have a uniform network with all systems on the same OS, I would need to
upgrade my wife's WinXP H-E to WinXP Pro. Since her system is the Sony with
the OEM license for WinXP H-E, and since I know that the rules for
plain-vanilla individual retail licenses don't always apply in exactly the
same way to OEM licenses, I wanted to check to see if the upgrade path was
feasible - that way, if it turned out to be nonfeasible, I would know that I
needed to come up with alternate arrangements before I sank too much in the
way of time or money into setting up an all WinXP Pro network.

Cheers,

Shyster
 
Theres no reason to upgrade to Pro simply to run on a network
I currently have a network of win2kpro, winxppro, winxphome (sony) & Vista
Business also media server box all via a netgear wired/wireless print server
router.
They all run together without a problem, its just that initial setup
requires manual config on the earlier o/s rather than a wizard
 
Again, thanks for the quick reply. Since I (obviously) know next to nothing,
would you by any chance have any useful references to hand that I might
consult - my experience level in general is probably best characterized as
advanced beginner, with a like for detailed explanation of what's going on as
opposed to glib cut-n-paste recipe booklets.

Regards,

Shyster
 
Thanks. I'll take a look-see through the site - at a first glance, it looks
like it should be technical enough (or more so) for me. The firewall is
another aspect I haven't finished thinking through yet (actually, I've barely
begun) - I was thinking (in very broad-brush terms) about setting up the
surplus desktop I'm going to be using as a general-purpose server machine to
also act as a firewall. Right now internet comes through cable and feeds
into a wireless router that the other computers connect to - the principal
defenses being the ISP (hee, hee), the router itself (a Belkin G-plus MIMO,
with MAC filtering, for what it's worth), and each computer's individual
firewalls/anti-virus (which I've managed to have play nice with each other,
so far).

By the way, I must say that I'm very grateful for your timely help. Thanks.

Shyster
 
With Firewalls on the individual PC's, preferably those that block in & out
as apposed to Win default firewall that only blocks in, and a NAT router you
should be fine
 
Again, thank you very much! The individual firewalls are through the
anti-virus software, not the Windows default, and the router does NAT.

Also, I've taken more of a look at that website you linked to, and that
looks like a fantastic resource, with references for both beginners like
myself as well as for experienced admins. I'm really grateful for your help.

Shyster
 
well your good to go then
If you have a problem on an individual PC, try disabling the Firewall first,
at least you know then its a firewall config isssue
 
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