Install home edition over proffesional

[chrisritson01]

My mum has a copy of xp pro on her PC and has bought a copy of home edition to replace it. Is there any way of installing the home edition copy onto her PC without wiping the hard drive. The reason for the her doing this is we have found that copy of proffesional on her PC is not an original :cry: so being the law abiding citizen she has bought an original of home edition :eek: .

Any assistance with this is, as always, greatly appreciated.

[chris5126]

You might be able to just put the cd when you first turn the computer on and upgrade (or downgrade) in this case without losing your files but to be on the safe side transfer them to disk or another computer. To keep all your settings go into c drive then copy all of the documents and settings these tell the computer the different desktops, backgrounds shortcuts etc and then when u have reinstalled if the info has been overwritten you can just copy them from your backup into the appropriate user files.

[chrisritson01]

THanx but i have investigated a bit further and it is not possible to down grade so it looks like a backup and fresh install.

Thanks anyway

[alc6379]

Yeah, even if you could, it's not a very good idea to do so. Additionally, MIcrosoft has never allowed a downgrade, like you can't use an "Upgrade" Windows 98 disc to install 98 onto a machine running Windows 2000.