Installing XP Proffesional over XP Home

My DV1000 Notebook came with XP Home and honestly i am sick and tired of it before i go out and get a copy of Windows XP Pro i want to clear few things

Is it possible to install xp pro over xp home without loosing data??? friend of mine said that there is no freakin way in this earth that i can install pro over home without formatting the whole darn hdd

Is it me or xp home is very very verrrrrrrrrrrry slow

DV1000 Centrino 1.7 Ghz
1 GB Ram

it runs like a freakin PIII 700 Mhz

As for the OS being slow, that sounds like vendor software bloat or some other problem not associated with the hardware itself.

Whenever doing an install of Windows, it is much more stable to do it from scratch with a clean drive. The moral of the story is backup what you really care about and just bite the bullet.

i know fresh install is always better than the upgrade method but i have like 55gb of data here and unfortunately no way to back them up until and unless i go the way of writing dvd's

it takes around 24-30 mins to write a dvd ( 4x with verification on ) and at that rate windows 2012 would be out lol

thats why i was saying if i can install without formatting for the time being so in future i can do a fresh install atleast i would be free from the pathetic home edition ( i regret not going for proffesional at time of buying but was running outt $$$$'s )

I would check your power management settings first. It is probably running in power save mode.

Otherwise, I am pretty sure you can install Pro over Home. Although the correct way would be to do a full format, but I think it would work.

dont beelive so
to do an upgrade from home you need an XP "upgrade" CD


as for Home being slow Home and Pro are identical - except PRO has better administeative tools. - it being slow is bloatware from the seller liekly. - or you just simply have too much stuff on your HD it is slowing it down.

found this

If you have purchased an OEM copy of Windows XP Home or Pro (this is the type normally shipped with new computers, without retail packaging) this cannot be used to upgrade any previous version of Windows. You would need to perform a clean install of the new operating system.

Click to expand...

http://www.mvps.org/marksxp/WindowsXP/upgrade.php

Is it possible to install xp pro over xp home without loosing data???

Click to expand...

No. You have to do a clean install and format the disk. The way Pro handles network connects is totally different from Home and you cannot install Pro over Home.

it takes around 24-30 mins to write a dvd ( 4x with verification on ) and at that rate windows 2012 would be out lol

Click to expand...

One idea would be to check into some of the internet backup services. You copy your files to their Internet site. When you are done with your install you copy them back. For large files it is easier then making a gazillion CDs

Or you could see if one of your friends would let you drag your data to there computer, do your reformat and install, then drag your data back. Thats what i do when reformatting, i copy all the stuff i want to keep to my laptop and drag it back when i finished.

What ^^^ said. Creating a simple peer-to-peer connect is very easy. Then just copy your files back and forth as needed.

okay here is the story ... i managed to copy all my critical data than i wanted to experiment with different theories i found on net and here ..

inserted windows xp installation cd into dvdrom

booted up, setup started, it detected previous installation of windows, asked me if i want to install in the same directory or some other directory, i selected SAME DIRECTORY ( it gave warning that My Documents and other files related to previous installation of Windows might get deleted ) installation started without any problem

i am right now on Windows XP Proffesional and its running like a breeze and it might be up my head but its much much MUCH better than stupid home

i did saved my outlook but where are accounts settings and rules saved???

Apart from loosing Azareus list which i was downloading, Firefox bookmarks all my stuff is there

Yes when you install into the same directory - you only overwrite windows files - but your add/remove priograms i think is empty so most installed programs wont work cause no reg files?

yeah most of the programs are not working ... but few like flashget, flashfxp, azareus are working although their lists are gone, flashget still have the previous logins i had done, firefox's bookmarks are gone

nothing major ... my old documents and settings folder is still there, can you tell me if i can restore my old accounts settings from there?