XP home to Pro upgrade

[David .............M..................]

I currently have XP home ed with SP1 and want to upgrade
to XP Professional.

What is the best way to do this? I would prefer an
upgrade path as I don't want to have to reinstall all my
applications etc. I am unsure how to upgrade from Home to
Pro bearing in mind I have SP1 applied to the current
home ed version.

Thanks

 

[Ken Blake]

In David .............M..................

I currently have XP home ed with SP1 and want to upgrade
to XP Professional.

What is the best way to do this? I would prefer an
upgrade path as I don't want to have to reinstall all my
applications etc. I am unsure how to upgrade from Home to
Pro bearing in mind I have SP1 applied to the current
home ed version.

Yes, you can upgrade XP Home to Professional. There is no special
upgrade version just for this, but the regular XP Professional
Upgrade works fine (although it doesn't say so on the box).

But are you sure you want to do this? Are you aware that XP Home
and Professional are identical except that Professional includes
a few features (mostly related to security and networking)
missing from Home? Most home users don't need and would never use
these extra features and will see no benefits by upgrading.

 

[David]

thanks Ken

Yes, I am aware home & pro and identical except some bits
security and networking. It is these I need.

I want to have a small home network, and one system is at
pro and one at home. It is a bit of a fiddle netowrking
the two. I would also like to use the encryption in Pro.

Do I just do an upgrade or do I need to reinstall SP1
afterwards?

Thanks

 

[Ken Blake]

In

Yes, I am aware home & pro and identical except some bits
security and networking. It is these I need.

OK, but see below.

I want to have a small home network, and one system is at
pro and one at home. It is a bit of a fiddle netowrking
the two.

It's not a problem at all. It works fine. It's the setup I have
here. Two computers both with Professional will network exactly
the same way as one with Professional and the other with Home.
The major networking difference in Professional is that it can
join a domain and Home can't; your home network is peer-to-peer,
not a domain, and Professional will give you nothing extra in
this regard.

I would also like to use the encryption in Pro.

OK, if you think that's worth the price of the upgrade.

Do I just do an upgrade or do I need to reinstall SP1
afterwards?

Just do the upgrade. SP1 should remain.

Thanks

You're welcome.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
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