Old XP Pro vs. new XP Home Ed.

[FatJackSprat]

I got a new computer with XP Home installed on it. I tried to use an XP Pro upgrade cd I got from school in 2003. I got a msg saying the present OS is newer than the one on the cd and shouldn't be changed, but if I wanted to change it I can do so by booting from the cd. It also said that I would lose all data.

What data will be lost? I haven't transferred any files to the new machine yet.

The new computer also doesn't have any programs that I want to use. It does have a video card that I don't have a driver disk for and that is newer than the XP Pro cd (it won't be able to auto install the driver). Will doing this overwrite or delete the drivers on the new machine?

I intend to share the internet connected to the new computer with another computer over a wireless connection. I would also like to allow the computers to access each other over the network if possible, but it is not important.

Are there any good reasons to upgrade to XP Pro?

Thanks

 

[rmrf]

well, the data that's going to be lost is everything on the machine. is the xp pro cd an "upgrade" cd as you specify, or an install cd? by doing the default xp pro install, you will have to do some driver searching, but that shouldn't be a big deal. windows will install default drivers so that you have a "working" system, then you can find the chipset, network, video, etc. drivers and install them.

I don't have any good reasons to "upgrade" to xp pro.

 

[FatJackSprat]

I'm not sure whether it is an upgrade or an install. The law school was calling them upgrades, they are cd's that the school burned and distributed. However, as you have stated that there don't seem to be any sufficient reasons for changing from XP Home to Pro, together with the fact that I would need to spend some time downloading information, I will not use the cd.

Thanks.

 

[FOBSIDE]

The XP Pro upgrade might be lower than Service Pack 2, while the Home install might already have Service Pack 2. This can be a conflict, because your system files on the computer are newer than the ones on the CD.

Unless you need to be on a domain, there really is no need to go to XP Pro. The sharing in XP Home by default has an "all or no one" permission setup, but this can be chanaged with an install that you can get from Microsoft so sharing permissions are like XP Pro.