My Windows XP Home edition is not allowing me to have any usage of my volume control, for some reason the file is missing and I can’t get it on my taskbar or anything. I have spoken with my tech support 3 times and they have told me the only choice I have to fix my problem is to re-install and start from the beginning. I really don’t want to do that because I have some programs that I will lose and do not have the install CD’s for.
My question is if I purchase and upgrade to Windows XP Professional, will that fix my problem?
When you re-install a Windows O/S, you do not lose the applications already installed.
Huh?
Re-install WinXP Home. It will re-install over itself and leave untouched your applications (programs). Upgrading to WinXP Pro should not be the case since you used to have that functionality with WinXP Home.
:smack: Ooops sorry, I meant Restore not Re-install.
The problem is that I don’t have the XP CD. It was already installed on my computer when I bought it.
I just had to reinstall XP Pro over XP Pro. (don’t ask.) No major issues.
I would recommend :
A.) Don’t buy XP Pro, buy XP Home, unless you have some specific other reason for wanting Pro.
B.) But first, talk to the person.place that sold you the computer. It should come with an O/S disk, if it came with an O/S.
C.) Pay close attention to the details of the version of XP you eventually buy. You want the full, regular version - not the kind for “New computers only” and not “Upgrade only” - because I don’t think XP will let you “Upgrade” from XP, it has to be an older Windows O/S.
There is probably a hidden partition on your hard drive that contains the WinXP Home installation files. You should be able to re-install from that.
How?
There should be written documentation that came with the computer that describes how to do this. It is a normal course for computer makers to sell computers with the Windows operating system installed, but no CDs in case you have yo do a re-install. That’s because the installation files are on that hidden partition. Some computer makers will go so far as to make available a set restore CDs for their computers just in case the hard drive dies and needs to be replaced.