XP Upgrade won't work

[BigFred]

I purchased a used IBM desktop running Windows 2000. When I purchased it, the guy told me it had a licensed copy of Windows 2000. When I tried upgrading it to XP, the install page said that "this version of Window's doesn't support the upgrade." I called the store and the salesman didn't have a good reason why it wouldn't work. I purchased the XP upgrade from Best Buy, so I know that it's a legal copy. The desktop is a P4 with 512M RAM so I know it should support the upgrade. Any ideas why this won't work? He mentioned something about maybe it was a developmental copy or some other such nonsense. Thanks.

Fred

[Rick]

If you have the upgrade disk and another copy of windows ( original disk)
You can do a clean install

Format the Hard drive
Then run the upgrade install
When it reports it can't find a previous install/copy ofwindows
it will ask you to put the disk from your previous version into the cd-rom drive

At that point place a legal copy of windows disk in the drive
let it find and read the disk
Then it will prompt you to remove that disk and place the upgrade disk back into the drive

The ONLY place where this won't work is when your upgrade disk is one for an XP to XP upgrade
Like sp1 to sp2

[BigFred]

Rick,
I think I figured out the problem. The computer is running 2000 Professional and my upgrade is XP Home (I used it on a previous computer that has deceased). Looks like I need to buy the XP Pro upgrade. Thanks for your advice, though.

Fred

[Paul Komski]

I think you nailed it.

Upgrading from Previous Versions of Windows to Windows XP Home Edition (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/upgrading/matrix.mspx)

[BigFred]

Solved the problem with an XP Pro upgrade. Thanks for the advice. Now I have two other issues that I've posted about that I need to resolve.