Converting Windows XP Home to Professional WITHOUT re-installing
I often get asked if it is possible to convert a machine with XP Home to XP Professional so that things such as Remote Desktop access and joining a domain are able to be accessed.
My previous answer was that you couldn’t and you needed to get a XP Professional license and then reinstall.
However searching for something totally un-related, I found a procedure that did exactly what I needed. This does not mean you instantly have things such as remote desktop etc, for that you need to do further hacking. For more information on that see this article.
However to do the basic conversion, simply follow the procedure below. I have done this on 4 or 5 XP Home installs, and it has worked flawlessly:
1. Click Start.
2. Click Run.
3. Type “regedit” and click OK.
4. 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. 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 and hit Enter.
You can then right click on My Computer and select Properties and it should display as XP Professional.
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