I have a Full version of XP Professional and that what was on my desktop prior to the upgrade to Home Premium. Both the HP and Pro are Upgrade versions.
My laptop came pre-installed with XP so I think since I have a legal Full version of XP Pro in my possession I can legally upgrade my desktop to Windows 7 Pro and then use my Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade to upgrade my laptop.
Yes, you most definitely qualify to use both Upgrades on both machines.
After struggling with this all day, I personally would stay away from Anytime simply because I don't know enough about MS activation concerning it. I even asked our Forums Administrator Brink about this and it is the first blank I've ever drawn from him.
If you did Anytime from HP to Pro and HP later failed activation because it's key somehow still locked into the Anytime, you could most certainly retrieve it just by uninstalling it from the desktop, accomplished by overwriting it with the in-place Upgrade workaround or a clean install. MS cannot take Product Keys back and by policy supports you through to activation once validated.
But I personally would back up my files and do the in-place Upgrade workaround probably because I just tested it this afternoon and it took only minutes to change the two registry keys, run the Pro installer from desktop which almost straightaway started the Upgrade on my Ultimate. Only if you had compatibility issues could there be a hitch and we could help you through those, probably by just uninstalling whatever program it doesn't like.
Think it over and decide what you want to do. If you clue us to when you will be doing it, I'll check in enough then to have your back.
That is what I am leaning towards as well. What registry tweaks are you talking about? In that guide that you linked earlier for the Repair Install, there was no mention of registry tweaks. What tweaks have to be made and would I make those before or after the in place install?
Thanks for all of the help and I will post when I plan on giving it a try. I have to make sure I have everything backed up just in case anything goes wrong and I am going away this weekend so I may not get to it before then, but hopefully I can.
Again thanks for all of the quick responses!
It is shown exactly what changes must be made in post #7.
Ha, well slight change of plans. I found a good deal on a new hard drive today Newegg.com - SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive so I am going to upgrade my hard drive when I do this. So it looks like I will just be doing a clean install on the desktop.
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