FREE Upgrade Windows XP Home to Windows XP Pro
Filed in: Microsoft, Tips n Tricks — June 7th, 2005
Using Microsoft Windows XP HOME edition? Want to upgrade to PRO edition but do NOT want to spend any cent? Here is a trick for you to upgrade for FREE!
yes indeed, you can’t change an installed Windows but only your Installation CD (or even a recovery CD in case the manufacturer had not left out important parts)
Here’s the detailed breakdown you asked for.
- Copy the root directory and the i386 directory of the WindowsXP CD to your harddisk
- Extract the Bootsector of your WindowsXP CD
- Change 2 Bytes in i386\Setupreg.hiv :
- Open Regedit
- Highlight HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
- Menu: File -> Load Structure -> i386\Setupreg.hiv
- Assign an arbitrary name to the imported structure e.g. “Homekey”
- Goto HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Homekey\ControlSet001\Services\setupdd
- edit the binary key “default” and change “01” to “00” and “02” to “00”
- Highlight “Homekey” and select menu: File -> unload structure
- Burn your new XP Pro CD
- Install WindowsXP as usual. Your XP Home Key will work.
Note: You cannot apply SP2 to such a WindowsXP Pro, so step 1.b) might be to integrate SP2 in your Installation CD
Please check the menu-entries as I don’t owe an English copy of XP and have to guess them.
Source: Gizmodo
Thought:
Have you read it? It might work for Recovery CD! As we know, many notebooks come with Microsoft Windows XP Home edition and Recovery CDs. I checked Dell website, upgrade WinXP Home to WinXP Pro edition need to add extra RM266 (USD70). So… 
