XP home/XP pro?

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steelth

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Ok this is probably a not a very smart question but my father has a comp. with xp pro on it with a xp pro key . I need to wipe his hard drive but i don't have the xp pro disc but i do have a xp home disc can i use the home disc and his pro key ? Thx for your help
 
Well , my father had a virus that took over his comp. i couldn't do anything ,"that i knew of " to remove it.It was locked up you couldn't go anywhere, not even in safe mode.So i took it to a shop they said they could remove it without wipeing his harddrive i said ok go for it , 87 dollars later we get it back you can do stuff but the "PC Defender " Rogue anti-virus was still there . Now he is haveing trojans show up all the time. I removed Pc-defender from the program list but it still has trojans showing up when we scan with AVG,IOrbits 360, and Malwarebytes'. So i thought that maybe we just need to wipe it out.
 
You might want to take a look at our Virus and Malware removal forum, especially the Updated 8 Step sticky. Perhaps something there might be of an assistance.
 
Ok this is probably a not a very smart question but my father has a comp. with xp pro on it with a xp pro key . I need to wipe his hard drive but i don't have the xp pro disc but i do have a xp home disc can i use the home disc and his pro key ? Thx for your help
If you think about it, the product key is recorded into the disc, it doesn't really exist on the hard drive until the Windows disc puts it there.
 
You might want to take a look at our Virus and Malware removal forum, especially the Updated 8 Step sticky
It may be the best way to deal with the issue.

If you really want to reinstall, your computer may have recovery partition. What brand of computer is it? How old?
Product key is not recorded on any CD.
If you have full version CD of XP Home with legit product key, you can surely format the drive and install Home on it.
As a matter of fact, you can install any Windows version as long, as you have a CD and valid product key.
Of course, the key is valid for Windows installation on one computer only.
 
If you think about it, the product key is recorded into the disc, it doesn't really exist on the hard drive until the Windows disc puts it there.

Hi Captain

I think that depends... The product key is sometimes included in an OEM disk but it's often not found on the disk but rather a sticky on the packaging the user must manually enter
 
The product key is sometimes included in an OEM disk
Honestly speaking, I've never seen such a case.
How would it be technically possible?
Creating millions of unique CDs for each unique computer?
 
Honestly speaking, I've never seen such a case.
How would it be technically possible?
Creating millions of unique CDs for each unique computer?

I believe it was a single OEM license key... I don't recall my old Dell XP Pro install CD ever asked for a license key. The install CD was only restricted to install on a Dell brand computer
 
Yea I think you are out of luck on that one. Only the Key that came with that particular CD will work. No mismatching
 
his question seems to be answered but in case anyone is still wondering....
first the answer can vary depending on if you went and purchased xp or you have an OEM copy. a product key is on the disc in a file called unattend.txt. however this is usually not the sticker on the side. this key is used to determine the manufacturer information of the computer.
 
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