Will a XP Home CD Key work on a XP Pro CD?

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MrSteel74

[H]ard|Gawd
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I have XP Home installed on my daughter's computer but the XP Home CD has a small hairline crack in it making the CD useless. Her Windows install got corrupted and so I am pretty much stuck. If I use my Windows XP Pro CD and her Home CD-Key will it work? I heard once that if you have Windows XP Media Center version but use a XP Pro Cd-Key it will install XP Pro. Would that work here use the XP Pro CD with the XP Home Cd-Key and it will install it as home version, or am I pretty much screwed here and have to get a new copy of XP home?
 
No, it will not. a home version of XP requires a home cd key. Your best way out of this would be a full oem version of whatever flavor of Vista you want. FIRST, www.microsoft.com/vista and download the upgrade advisor, and see what the pc will support.you could also go either oem xp home, or MCE2005 OEM, They are all about the same price,in the $90-120 price range.
 
Nope not upgrading to Vista until either SP1 is released or there is a Direct X 10 game I need. Her computer can be upgraded to Vista but I really don't wanna buy 2 copies of Vista.
 
Is your daughters PC OEM or is it a Home build? If it's a DELL HP Gateway etc, the oem media that came with it, is what's called locked to the bios, and it will require either an OEM copy of XP or recovery discs from the MFG.. I just suggested Vista, because of the same price for an oem copy. A nice upgrade would be MCE2005 OEM.No matter what you buy, either retail or OEM it's still 1 copy per pc.Retail will just let you move it from pc to pc, where oem isn't SUPPOSED to be able to be moved.
 
It's home built I haven't bought a prebuilt pc in about 10 years. The copy is a retail version that I got way back when XP was released for a contest.
 
MrSteel74 said:
It's home built I haven't bought a prebuilt pc in about 10 years. The copy is a retail version that I got way back when XP was released for a contest.
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Then you will need a RETAIL cd in order for the cd key to work. OEM and Retail keys aren't interchangable either.
 
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