Upgrade from XP Home SP3 to XP Professional SP2

[CreepeRer]

I have a Dell 8300 desktop running with Windows XP Home edition with Service Pack 3. I recently bought a new retail box which came with Genuine Windows XP Professional Upgrade. I can read written outside the box that it can upgraded from XP Home to XP Professional. Well i would like to do that but want to keep my existing files and programs untouched. Now the problem i am facing is whenever i start the process i use to get an error message on my screen saying "The software installed in computer is newer than the one on the CD" and installation quits itself.

I get one more message after that which says to restart the system and use the CD to perform the new installation but it was not my intention. I tried to get MS Support but the support dialog box says it cannot recognize the product key. I have no idea what else to do. Can anyone please help.

Thank you.

[Patter-Son]

First of all let me tell you that Upgrading Windows XP Home to XP Pro is a very critical job. I dont know how the box says it can be upgraded but as far as i know most of the upgrades from Home to Pro has ended up saying "Corrupt OS". However there are few successful upgrades but most of them have been unsuccessful. Also even i dint found anywhere on Microsoft web site saying to do a Windows XP Pro upgrade from Windows XP Home.

[Landon]

Yeah, thats correct. You just cannot upgrade a Windows XP SP3 installation with a XP SP2 install disc. It's that simple. You either uninstall SP3 or do a clean install with the SP 2 disc.

[FRIESEN]

Hello CreepeRer. The error you are getting is because you just can't Upgrade to an earlier service pack. Doing this called as downgrade, right? So the only solution you have is to either uninstall the Service Pack 3 from the system, do the upgrade, and reinstall SP3, or... or update your SP2 CD with SP3 - this is called slipstreaming, and it results in you having a backup and UPDATED copy of your XP CD. IN order to this just search the term "slipstream XP SP3 autostreamer" on Google and you will find few articles with step by step process. You
do need the full SP3 installer, which is about 400 meg. Hope it helps.

[Agilent]

I dont how people say Xp Home cannot be upgraded because in the following MS Article i can see that Windows XP Home Edition can be upgraded to Windows XP Professional Retail (Full) Version and Windows XP Professional Upgrade Version. You can check the same here: Windows XP supported upgrade paths.