I have a job where some XP home PCs need to be upgraded to XP Pro so they can go on a new SBS2003 install.

 

The problem is that you can no longer buy the XP Pro upgrades and I have been told the only way to do this is to buy Open licences, then upgrade to Vista and then use the downgrade rights to install XP Pro. This sounds a right old rigmarole, just to upgrade to Pro!!

 

This method not only soulnds arduous, but will probably end up becoming a total reinstall of XP Pro, something that the users don't want and are not prepared for not to mention the time this will all take.  I remember when XP came out it was said at the time that the only difference was a registry entry, as the Open licence has been bought there is no licence issue, just the practicality of conversion.

 

Anyone got any ideas?

 

Thanks in advance

Thanks for the reply, the client has already bought the open licences though.

 

So the original question of how to do this upgrade still stands - what media will I need, and how will the process work? Can I just use an XP Pro cd, and then call Microsoft for the XP key (having given them a valid Vista key)??

I had a similar scenario earlier this year. My recollection of it was that the customer got the Vista upgrade with XP Pro downgrade rights. I also ordered the media kit that went with this and got XP from that.

 

The only problem I had was that I couldnt do an upgrade as the version of XP Pro on the media kit was so old - no SP, or SP1, that it wouldnt upgrade the XP Home because it was running SP2. The only way I had around it was a clean install.

 

I didnt have to install Vista at all prior to doing this.

 

 

Yes I had read about the SP differences, also you have to remove IE7 first. It is a real pain as I really do not want to have to rebuild these PCs from scratch!! There just is not the budget for this, or the desire from the client!

 

Thanks for the info though

Well, today was the day I was on site, and had this job to do of upgrading from Home to Pro.

So I can happily report that the method I followed was as followed:

 

Using Open Licences for XP Pro, obtained key from eopen site, then downloaded the media - I chose the XP Pro upgrade with SP3.

Backup whole PC

Remove IE7, restart.

Run the install for XP and select upgrade then enter the key, off it goes.

 

Apart from one VERY unexpected restart during the first stage it all went ok until it was configuring devices, and it then couldn't find a driver, but I was able to download this and off it went. About 1hr 10m all in, then a reboot, then it came up with the login. All seems to be ok so far, although it had lost the AVG registration. I have not fully tested it yet, but it is near enough so far.

 

So I got XP Pro with SP3, now just need to add IE7 although this can wait until after I have joined these to the new SBS box. Now onto the others, but that is for Monday!