XP Pro to XP Home
 

Have a laptop on which I am now getting the message that Windows XP
Professional is not genuine Microsoft. Have been getting this for about 3
weeks.

Have purchased Windows XP Home. Can I install this onto the XP Pro laptop?
If so, are there any special things I should do? Should I use Control
Panel/Add Remove Programs to remove XP Pro and then use the CD to install XP
Home? Other methods will be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

XP Pro to XP Home
 

Unfortunately Home is considered a lower tier product from Pro. It's
not possible to downgrade. You'll need to do a fresh install and back
up your personal data beforehand. You can use FAST ( Files and
Settings Transfer ), but it's sometimes unreliable. Just make sure that
whatever type of backup you perform the data is verified. This helps
ensure that when needed the data can be recovered.

The other issue is a fresh install will cause you to loose any OEM
installed apps on the notebook. Hopefully you have installation media
for all your applications.

"Max" wrote in message
...
Have a laptop on which I am now getting the message that Windows XP
Professional is not genuine Microsoft. Have been getting this for about 3
weeks.

Have purchased Windows XP Home. Can I install this onto the XP Pro laptop?
If so, are there any special things I should do? Should I use Control
Panel/Add Remove Programs to remove XP Pro and then use the CD to install
XP
Home? Other methods will be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

XP Pro to XP Home
 

"Max" wrote in message
...
Have a laptop on which I am now getting the message that Windows XP
Professional is not genuine Microsoft. Have been getting this for about 3
weeks.

Have purchased Windows XP Home. Can I install this onto the XP Pro laptop?
If so, are there any special things I should do? Should I use Control
Panel/Add Remove Programs to remove XP Pro and then use the CD to install
XP
Home? Other methods will be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.
You can certainly perform a clean install of XP Pro.
Before you do that though, make certain that you have all of the special
chipset drivers for your machine. The OEM is about the only source for
such.
You cannot remove XP via Control Panel/Add Remove Programs.
Instead, after making a backup of all of your files and folders, insert the
CD into the drive and enable booting from the CD drive first in the BIOS
(also called System Setup)
The CD will proceed to wipe out the previous installation and put XP on your
computer. After this is finished, you install the chipset drivers (else the
laptop won't work very well).

During the installation of XP, you may receive the message "Press any key to
boot from the CD". Do not press any key because you definitely do not need
to boot from the CD.
Jim

XP Pro to XP Home
 

Max wrote:
Have a laptop on which I am now getting the message that Windows XP
Professional is not genuine Microsoft. Have been getting this for
about 3 weeks.

Have purchased Windows XP Home. Can I install this onto the XP Pro
laptop? If so, are there any special things I should do? Should I
use Control Panel/Add Remove Programs to remove XP Pro and then use
the CD to install XP Home? Other methods will be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

You can install Windows XP Home on the laptop that currently has Windows XP
Professional installed. You could actually install any compatable OS, not
just Windows XP Home, etc. However - you will be performing a clean
installation (everything wiped out, everything installed fresh, whatever is
not backed up will be lost.)

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

XP Pro to XP Home
 

On Tue, 16 Dec 2008 13:30:01 -0800, Max
wrote:

Have a laptop on which I am now getting the message that Windows XP
Professional is not genuine Microsoft. Have been getting this for about 3
weeks.

Have purchased Windows XP Home. Can I install this onto the XP Pro laptop?
If so, are there any special things I should do? Should I use Control
Panel/Add Remove Programs to remove XP Pro


It's not a question of "should" you do that, it's a question of *can*
you. The answer is no. You can never uninstall any version of Windows
from within Windows. That would be like sawing off the branch of a
tree while you're sitting on the branch.

Yes, you can install XP Home on the laptop, but you have to do a clean
installation. Downgrades from Professional to Home are not possible.

To do a clean installation, first back up any data that you need to
external media, but note that all programs will have to be
reinstalled. Backing up programs won't help you.

Just boot from the Windows XP CD (change the BIOS boot order if
necessary to accomplish this) and follow the prompts for a clean
installation (delete the existing partition by pressing "D" when
prompted, then create a new one).

You can find detailed instructions he
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

or here
http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org/how...windows_xp.htm

or here http://windowsxp.mvps.org/XPClean.htm

or here http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/clean_install.htm


--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience
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