Major Failure At Microsoft Windows Home Edition HOWTO Change Windows XP Home to Windows

It seem that microsoft windows has little "bug"

How to change Home edition to proessional
here the steps

1. Copy the root directory and the i386 directory of the WindowsXP CD to your harddisk
2. Extract the Bootsector of your WindowsXP CD
3. Change 2 Bytes in i386\Setupreg.hiv :
a) Open Regedit
Highlight HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
c) Menu: File -> Load Structure -> i386\Setupreg.hiv
d) Assign an arbitrary name to the imported structure e.g. âHomekeyâ
e) Goto HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Homekey\ControlSet001\Services\setupdd
f) edit the binary key âdefaultâ and change â01â to â00â and â02â to
â00â
g) Highlight âHomekeyâ and select menu: File -> unload structure
4. Burn your new XP Pro CD
5. Install WindowsXP as usual. Your XP Home Key will work.

Note: You cannot apply SP2 to such a WindowsXP Pro, so step 1.
might be to integrate SP2 in your Installation CD

Please check the menu-entries as I donât owe an English copy of
XP and have to guess them.

this was discovered by a "hackers" see the article here : link

what is the point of changing it? You will not have some programs that the pro version has. Are there differnet updates for the diffeent windows?? And hasn't microsoft said that they will stop updating sp1s? and you have to download the sp2 "patch"???

If I remember correctly, Microsoft has discontinued support for any non SP1a or SP2 versions of XP. SP1 and non-SP systems can no longer receive updates. However, as for why you would want XP Pro instead of Home: the main difference between Pro and Home is networking capability. Home was not designed to network anything more than a prnter and two or three computers, whereas Pro was designed to network an entire business. Since wireless has taken over houses, many people are now exceeding that two computers and a printer semi-limit for Home. However, I doubt that the hack given here does anything more than make Windows think it is Pro instead of Home, not add any of the differences between Home and Pro.~Viz

If I remember correctly, Microsoft has discontinued support for any non SP1a or SP2 versions of XP.  SP1 and non-SP systems can no longer receive updates.  However, as for why you would want XP Pro instead of Home: the main difference between Pro and Home is networking capability.  Home was not designed to network anything more than a prnter and two or three computers, whereas Pro was designed to network an entire business.  Since wireless has taken over houses, many people are now exceeding that two computers and a printer semi-limit for Home.  However, I doubt that the hack given here does anything more than make Windows think it is Pro instead of Home, not add any of the differences between Home and Pro.

 

~Viz

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

...wait, what?

 

I don't think there is a limitation on the number of computers you can network using home...there shouldn't be, if there was there would have to be a notice on the box. And if there was MS would be selling add-ons to increase the network size on xp home for home users.

 

A limit doesn't make sense, when you refer to a home network do you mean that the computers simply share a network connection through a router and don't share folders, or where you have an actual network where the computers share files and the internet?

 

I know that at the place I work (I'm a minor video editor for a small start up company) we run home on most of the machines and share files and itnernet and there are a good dozen computers hooked up together...

It's not a limit, just the way the networking capability was designed. What I was told was that Home's networking capability was desinged around small networks, it would work extra effectively for small networks, but the larger the network grew, the less efficient it would become. Pro is the other way around. A tiny network will be less efficient because the network capability was designed to be optimized for huge networks. Why they wouldn't just make one "let's optimize for everything" is beyond me. but no real limit.~Viz

It's not a limit, just the way the networking capability was designed.  What I was told was that Home's networking capability was desinged around small networks, it would work extra effectively for small networks, but the larger the network grew, the less efficient it would become.  Pro is the other way around.  A tiny network will be less efficient because the network capability was designed to be optimized for huge networks.  Why they wouldn't just make one "let's optimize for everything" is beyond me.  but no real limit.

 

~Viz

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

How can they optimize for different sizes? If they were to to design optimization for networking it would naturally lean towards optimization of a network of any size, your "let's optimize for everything". If they wanted to increase/decrease optimization for different sized networks they wouldhave to build in blocks within the program to create an actual decrease in optimization. =P

 

...but then again, we are talking about a money making business, so the chances of them actually doing this and marketting it as differently optimized networks in order to make more money makes sense ''

I find it confusing too, it seems harder to optimize differently than for one any size system. Maybe there is some marketing advantage to it? I was told this when I asked a Microsoft salesperson what the difference was. On my home network of large proportions I've mixed numerous copies of Home and Pro. Granted one of the computers with Home is greatly taxed speed wise, but it has lots of memory intensive programs that always run on it, so I don't blame windows. Here is the Microsoft comparison page for the various Windows XPs: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/.
As you can see under the Professional description, Professional offers

improved ability to connect to large networks

So, not that you are wrong and I am right, I'm just as confused as you are, but just a defense of where I got my info from.
~Viz

This has no effect on the a actual opperating system I believe all it does is change the part in system properties ect, which tells you which opperating system you are running, which means if you are on a website that detects the opperating system, it will detect you are running professional and not home when you are actually still running home.There isn't much difference between the two except things like remote desktop, computer managment etc Just security options, and it can be used on server 2003 more easily than with home.

So if this doesn't actually change the operating system from Home to Pro, then why would anyone do it? Does it make people feel better if they are running Pro? If I were to go and buy a Wintel machine right now, I would want to have Pro, just because I have heard there are problems with updating and apps and stuff.