win 7 home to win 7 pro upgrade

[Mclaren]

I am considering purchasing win 7 pro retail, is it possible to load pro over home keeping all updates and programs ?

[M1K3]

You should be able to make use of the "Windows Anytime Upgrade" This can be found in your start menu. So far I have been successful in upgrading from Home Starter and Home Premium to Pro without any hassles.

Any particular reason you want to go pro though? Only big advantage IMO is the ability to connect to domains.

[Ron2K]

I'd also use the Professional edition if I was planning on using Remote Desktop to connect to it; Home Basic and Home Premium cannot function as an RDP server. Also, if you're a .NET developer, having an edition that incorporates IIS is handy.

That being said, Home Premium is good enough for most cases.

[M1K3]

Didn't know about the RDP, guess most home users wouldn't take advantage of it, but c'mon m$

[Mclaren]

XP mode is the only reason. I have some old stuff that needs XP, and i cannot get it to work on win 7.

[garp]

Don't forget the "Hardware-assisted virtualization" needed to run XP mode.... Although, it seems like MS have changed that, and made it so you don't need it anymore. Wonder if that’s true

[Mclaren]

The patch for hardware vitualisation does not work, tried it on 3 PC's but to no avail. I have now got Pro on a pc with hardware vitualisation, but cannot get XP mode to work. Even though i have installed XP mode and Virtual PC, when clicking on the virtual machine it says i need to download a file, takes me back to the XP mode page to download what i have done already.

[Monty]

Have you installed the MS update that is needed? Not just the hardware patch thing?

[Mclaren]

on the website they say 3 things must be installed, xp mode, virtual pc, and the patch, thats all.

[3ddy]

if i am not mistaken when downloading xp mode it does an authentication to make sure your copy of windows is legit
you may find if you are downloading from one PC then installing on another PC that may cause issues
i have managed to test the MS patch and it works fine so far
but only certain versions of windows can run xp-mode

[Monty]

if i am not mistaken when downloading xp mode it does an authentication to make sure your copy of windows is legit
you may find if you are downloading from one PC then installing on another PC that may cause issues

Uhm.... Nope. The validity check basically gives you permission to download the file, but doesn't limit the file to one PC.

but only certain versions of windows can run xp-mode

Yes, Win 7 Professional and Ultimate, which is why he upgraded to Professional, or did you miss that part of the thread?

[garp]

So I downloaded XP mode, enabled Hardware-assisted virtualization in my bios, and it workes great. But... When I enable Hardware-assisted virtualization, all my networked drives won't connect, and MSN won't sign in. (not that I care, I just wanted to see XP mode is all about)

[Mclaren]

I cannot get the thing to work.