Install XP Home on machine that came with XP Pro

[kenthurgood]

Hello,
I'm new to this forum and need a little advice.
I purchased a used R32 that originally came XP Pro but had the hard drive wiped.
Since I had an XP Home disk, I installed and entered the key that came with it.
When I go to use Microsoft authentication process for updates, it tells me the computer reports the last 5 digits as being shown differently.
Is the original OS key in the bios or in the little 8MB or so hidden partition.
Appreciate ay help.
Thanks.

[jdhurst]

To avoid problems down the road, you should install XP Pro instead. XP Home has crippled networking and will stop you dead in your tracks if you try to make any business use of it, and make file and printer sharing unnecessarily difficult. ... JDH

[GomJabbar]

If you have the full retail version of XP Home, you should be able to call Microsoft and they will help you get activated. If you have an OEM version, then you need to get something else. If you have an upgrade version, then you probably need to have a previous version of Windows installed first.

[kenthurgood]

Thanks for the advice.

[ZaZ]

To avoid problems down the road, you should install XP Pro instead. XP Home has crippled networking and will stop you dead in your tracks if you try to make any business use of it, and make file and printer sharing unnecessarily difficult. ... JDH

I never noticed that. It's true XP Home can't log into a NT Domain controller, but I think for home usage, that won't be a problem for most. I ran XP and 2K for years at home in a workgroup. I never had any issues sharing network drives or printers. As opposed to Vista, which in my case has been terrible.