Problem Upgrading to XP Pro

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

I bought a copy of Windows XP Professional about 18 months ago and used it
on my old computer quite happily, I made a back-up of the CD-Rom to one of
my hard drives and stored the original CD in my spare room upstairs.

I have recently purchased a brand new HP Desktop computer with Windows XP
Home Edition pre-installed and I wanted to upgrade this to my XP Pro
version, I have looked in vain for the original CD but without any luck, I
know I have it somewhere but it escapes me at the moment. So, I figured I
would just locate the back-up copy which I have on my second hard drive,
which I have installed into this new computer, and install it from there.

The problem is when I try this, I get the following error message:

---------------------------------

Windows Setup

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.

--------------------------------

But I dont want to delete the version of XP Home on my computer, I just want
to upgrade to the version of XP Pro from my hard drive, and without having
to reinstall all of my software and drivers again.

Is there any way around this? Im frustrated by the fact that I just want to
do a simple upgrade, but Windows won't allow me

Any help or guidence will as always be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks in advance

Wayne

 

[Rock]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

Wayne Smith wrote:
> I bought a copy of Windows XP Professional about 18 months ago and used it
> on my old computer quite happily, I made a back-up of the CD-Rom to one of
> my hard drives and stored the original CD in my spare room upstairs.
>
> I have recently purchased a brand new HP Desktop computer with Windows XP
> Home Edition pre-installed and I wanted to upgrade this to my XP Pro
> version, I have looked in vain for the original CD but without any luck, I
> know I have it somewhere but it escapes me at the moment. So, I figured I
> would just locate the back-up copy which I have on my second hard drive,
> which I have installed into this new computer, and install it from there.
>
> The problem is when I try this, I get the following error message:
>
> ---------------------------------
>
> Windows Setup
>
> 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.
>
> --------------------------------
>
> But I dont want to delete the version of XP Home on my computer, I just want
> to upgrade to the version of XP Pro from my hard drive, and without having
> to reinstall all of my software and drivers again.
>
> Is there any way around this? Im frustrated by the fact that I just want to
> do a simple upgrade, but Windows won't allow me
>
> Any help or guidence will as always be greatly appreciated.
>
> Many thanks in advance
>
> Wayne
>
>

It won't upgrade because the SP level on the Home installation is
greater than that on on the installation CD. You'll need to create an
installation CD slipstreamed with the same SP, probably SP2, that's on
the Home installation. Here are some links for slipstreaming:

http://www.theeldergeek.com/slipstreamed_xpsp2_cd.htm
http://unattended.msfn.org/beginner/slipstream.htm

Autostreamer
http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/1092632287/1
http://www.simplyguides.net/guides/using_autostreamer/using_autostreamer.html
http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=223562

Note: by the EULA you can't have the same copy of XP installed on two
computers at the same time, so if XP Pro is still on the old one, then
it needs to be removed.

--
Rock
MS MVP Windows - Shell/User