M
mm
Flightless Bird
XP Pro to XP Home
Thanks again for all your help about putting a replacement hard drive
and OS in the second hand Dell my friend has given me.
It seems each solution leads to a new problem!
I had hoped to just copy an image of my current XP Home, which is on a
PATA drive, to the new SATA hard drive for the Dell.
For some reason I had assumed he had XP Home like I do, but he had
Profesional.
So now, other than the really really time-consuming way, I have four
choices that I can think of to get all my data and programs and
settings to the new computer, all probably bad, but you tell me!
1) Clone my XP Home to the a SATA drive for the new-to-me Dell
computer, and hope that the Dell Product Key on that computer will
work for Home even though the computer originally had Pro. End up
with Home. If this would work, it would be just fine.
2) Use the Dell XP Pro Reinstallation CD to put barebones Pro in the
Dell,
a) then use my own retail XPHome CD to *down*grade from Pro to Home.
Then copy every file in my current XPHome to the Dell. End up with
Pro. If it's possible to downgrade, this would be just fine.
OR
b) then copy every file from my current XPHome that won't
interfere*** with Pro to the Dell. Copy every file I can that is
related to me and what I've been doing. On the Dell, reinstall much
of the software**, almost all of which I have the setup files for.
End up with Pro.
Or
c) then copy every file from my current XPHome including those which
would cause XPPro to become XPHome; copy almost every file. Reinstall
whatever needs to be reinstalled. End up with Home.
For option b)
***Is it possible that someone has made up instructions how to do
this? Or has made a list of what files *would* interefere with Pro?
I figure they would all be in the Windows folder, but otoh, I can't
make things work if I don't copy a lot of the files in that folder.
If this would really work, I'd end up with Pro, which would be nice,
but it seems unlikely to work.
Or maybe someone has made a list of files that *would* interfere with
Pro. Either way. Plus I can make reasonable choices myself, and
add more later, or delete/rename ones I shouldn't have have copied.
**Except Agent (for news) and Eudora (for mail) and anything else that
doesn't need installation. IIUC all the programs I have now should
be in the "Program Files" folder, but maybe some are elsewhere, like
in the Windows folder???.
-- end footnotes for 2b --
Thanks for any helpful suggestions.
Thanks again for all your help about putting a replacement hard drive
and OS in the second hand Dell my friend has given me.
It seems each solution leads to a new problem!
I had hoped to just copy an image of my current XP Home, which is on a
PATA drive, to the new SATA hard drive for the Dell.
For some reason I had assumed he had XP Home like I do, but he had
Profesional.
So now, other than the really really time-consuming way, I have four
choices that I can think of to get all my data and programs and
settings to the new computer, all probably bad, but you tell me!
1) Clone my XP Home to the a SATA drive for the new-to-me Dell
computer, and hope that the Dell Product Key on that computer will
work for Home even though the computer originally had Pro. End up
with Home. If this would work, it would be just fine.
2) Use the Dell XP Pro Reinstallation CD to put barebones Pro in the
Dell,
a) then use my own retail XPHome CD to *down*grade from Pro to Home.
Then copy every file in my current XPHome to the Dell. End up with
Pro. If it's possible to downgrade, this would be just fine.
OR
b) then copy every file from my current XPHome that won't
interfere*** with Pro to the Dell. Copy every file I can that is
related to me and what I've been doing. On the Dell, reinstall much
of the software**, almost all of which I have the setup files for.
End up with Pro.
Or
c) then copy every file from my current XPHome including those which
would cause XPPro to become XPHome; copy almost every file. Reinstall
whatever needs to be reinstalled. End up with Home.
For option b)
***Is it possible that someone has made up instructions how to do
this? Or has made a list of what files *would* interefere with Pro?
I figure they would all be in the Windows folder, but otoh, I can't
make things work if I don't copy a lot of the files in that folder.
If this would really work, I'd end up with Pro, which would be nice,
but it seems unlikely to work.
Or maybe someone has made a list of files that *would* interfere with
Pro. Either way. Plus I can make reasonable choices myself, and
add more later, or delete/rename ones I shouldn't have have copied.
**Except Agent (for news) and Eudora (for mail) and anything else that
doesn't need installation. IIUC all the programs I have now should
be in the "Program Files" folder, but maybe some are elsewhere, like
in the Windows folder???.
-- end footnotes for 2b --
Thanks for any helpful suggestions.