A tech has installed an illegal copy of XP Pro when he repaired my computer, is it possible to reload my legal copy of XP Home with the correct Key over the Pro and not lose all of my information?

Originally Posted by onehondo

A tech has installed an illegal copy of XP Pro when he repaired my computer, is it possible to reload my legal copy of XP Home with the correct Key over the Pro and not lose all of my information?

Firstly welcome to the forum! Unfornately, no there is not. But just out of curistoy what kind of tech was this? Did you give him permission? There is a thing called

File and Setting Transfer Wizard

You can use that to backup your data on another computer, or hard drive or maybe even a CD.
[inst]
Start
All Programs
Accessories
System Tools
File and Setting Transfer Wizard
[/inst]

Hope you have very good luck!

Originally Posted by onehondo

A tech has installed an illegal copy of XP Pro when he repaired my computer, is it possible to reload my legal copy of XP Home with the correct Key over the Pro and not lose all of my information?

Welcome to the forum onehondo :banana:

Any Tech worth his salt would not have installed a pirated version of XP on your computer so i would advise to never go back to him again.

Have you got a huge amount of information that would be lost?. If not, i would just do a clean install of XP Home and start fresh. Otherwise just follow what Tyler said and you should be fine .

Keep us informed how you get on :thumbs:

No. You really can't!! I've went from Pro to home before and you can't do it like an upgrade! Instead of doing a clean install you can replace files anf folders only. This will save some of your info. Anything in users files will be lost unless you copy them to a different folder. Make a temp folder under C: and copy your whole "My Documents" folder there. Make sure that you don't just copy a short cut there. This will save all your documents, pictures, music, and exec.

I did this once... Pro to Home

Anyway:

Copy your Documents and Settings Folder, and zip it using the built in zip tool. Burn it to a CD.
Go, and instal XP Home, just like you'd normally do, reformating the drive.
Next, unzip the old Documents and Settings folder, and drag it to C:/ or I:/ or whatever your main drive is. It should overwrite all the files. Reboot.

There you go ;-)

Christian

I never thought of using the zip tool...In fact I rarely use it. Save CD space, right? Excellent point, Christian H. 8-)

Exactly ;-) Since a CD is only 650MB, zipping it allows you to put 1Gb of information onto the CD

Christian

Originally Posted by Blizey

I never thought of using the zip tool...In fact I rarely use it. Save CD space, right? Excellent point, Christian H. 8-)

I FORGOT ALL ABOUT THAT MYSELF . THANKS FOR THE REMINDER CHTISTIAN 8-)