Installing XP Pro over XP Home?

Marty999

My boss has a Sony Vaio laptop which will not boot up into Windows, it presents this error message:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: <windowsroot>\system32\hal.dll.

I am told this is a crucial DLL and that Windows needs to be re-installed. The laptop normally runs XP Home. I'd like to install a licensed copy of XP Professional over it, does anybody know if this will work OK? One of my colleagues thinks this may not be a good idea and it really needs a clean install.

I am copying off all the documents and date from both partitions (C and D) just in case any data gets lost. I guess the C partition may need to be formatted first?

Any advice appreciated.

Little_John

Copy everything off and install from scratch its the best way. Installing over the top can work but you still have all the crap from the previous install that can cause problems so its always best to wipe and start again.

You could try the windows repair that is very good at fixing windows problems restoreing files etc.

Marty999

Thanks Little John. We don't have the original XP Home installation CD and none of our other PCs runs XP Home, which is why I am planning to install XP Pro. Plus then I can join it to the domain of course too.