Modding Windows XP Home to Pro

Anti-Trend

Anti-Trend

Nonconformist Geek
El Reg is currently running a brief article which describes a method of adding a many of XP Pro's features to XP Home, which is exactly the same OS minus those features. According to the venerable German computer magazine C'T, all it really takes is a quick tweak to your XP Home install disc and you can be up & running with some of those XP Pro features which are witheld from XP Home customers. A grab from the article:

"C'T writes in its latest print issue (in German only) that you need to copy the root directory and the i386 directory of the WindowsXP CD to your harddisk, extract the Bootsector of your WindowsXP CD and change only 2 bytes in i386\Setupreg.hiv by using Regedit. In fact all you have to do is edit the binary key "default" and change "01" to "00" and "02" to "00" in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Homekey\ControlSet001\Services\setupdd, C'T claims."

There is, however, a major drawback. Once this hack is applied, users won't be able to install Service Pack 2 unless they use the slipstream method to integrate SP2 into the installation CD. It's my opinion that this may cause possible upgrade issues in the future as well.
 
heheh class...

I was told that it was the Serial Key that determined what version of windows you had? Like a professional key would work on an "educational" version, and upgrade it? cant confirm it, but it sounds plausible.
 
Nope, like the article says, just a simple registry setting (generally speaking). :) I suspected that XP Home was just crippleware, but this seems to confirm it.
 
The crippleware idea does make sense. Why code a completely new, yet less functional OS when you can use some coding to disable certain parts of the OS, rebadge it, and charge a little less? From a business standpoint, it wouldn't make sense when both OS'es are on the same base code just to simply re-make a product you're going to sell for a lower cost. The upgrades are pretty much a matter of a little coding to check for a previous version vs. the full-version OS.
 
You're right B. Of course, from that perspective, why even bother making XP in the first place? Fundamentally it's merely a bloatware version of Windows 2000 with some of the most useful features crippled and a PlaySkool-like GUI slapped onto it.
 
because MS can make more money releasing a "new" Operating System. At over 100bucks a pop and millions of people with the "new" OS why not?
 
Wow. I didnt know it was crippleware. Ive always had professional anyways though.
 
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