Gustav Brock
gustav at cactus.dk
Thu Apr 21 16:53:47 CDT 2011
Hi all We are moving into Active Directory. Thus, a couple of Windows XP Home machines had to be upgraded to XP Professional to be able to join the domain. Facing this non-productive workload, I recalled that an XP Pro version is nothing more than a non-crippled XP Home version. And it is. For those of you not aware of this, here is explained how to make the switch in minutes and with zero reinstall of apps etc.: http://www.codingforums.com/archive/index.php/t-34191.html <quote> This will let you join a computer to a Domain. You may not be able to get anymore security updates after making this change. To convert and upgrade Windows XP Home to Windows XP Professional, follow procedure below. 1.Open Registry Editor (regedit). 2.Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/ControlSet00X/Control/ProductOptions, where ControlSet00X is the one with the highest number. 3.Delete the ProductSuite registry key. 4.Then, create a new DWORD value and named it as Brand. 5.Set the "Brand" value data as 0. 6.Reboot the system. 7.On boot up after the BIOS screen, press F8 to display Windows XP Startup Menu. 8.Choose Last Known Good Configuration (LNG) and hit Enter. Windows XP will start up as usual. After logging into the desktop, check the system properties to verify that it's now Windows XP Professional. </quote> Of course, you will have to supply a valid XP Professional product key. If you don't, XP will run, but the Windows "Genuine Advantage" Update will be haunting you and Windows Update may cease to operate. However, having the key, this is easy - there even exists a video showing how to perform this task: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPmI1oFUrg4 /gustav