Re: XP Home --> Pro upgrade
- From: "Bruce Chambers" <bchambers@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2007 13:37:51 -0600
"Martin Murray" <email@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:epey3NheHHA.588@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I've been using XP Home on my Fujitsu for some time now and want to change it over to Pro. Are there any "gotchas" to be aware of with this?
Not normally, no.
WinXP is designed to install and upgrade the existing operating system while simultaneously preserving your applications and data, and translating as many personalized settings as possible. The process is designed to be, and normally is, quite painless. That said, things can go wrong, in a small number of cases. If your data is at all important to you, back it up before proceeding.
Normally, the upgrade from WinXP Home to WinXP Pro, in particular, almost always goes smoothly, as both operating systems use the same kernel.
How can I best transfer my settings to the Administrative account after I make this change?
That's not something I'd recommend doing.
The built-in Administrator account really isn't intended to be used for day-to-day normal use. The standard security practice is to rename the account, set a strong password on it, and use it only to create another account for regular use, reserving the Administrator account as a "back door" in case something corrupts your regular account(s).
A wiser course of action would be to create another user account for your daily use (as you've done), and copy desired the files and settings from the Administrator account to this newly created user profile.
As for other accounts with administrative privileges, routinely using a computer with administrative privileges is not without some risk. You will be much more susceptible to some types of malware, particularly adware and spyware. While using a computer with limited privileges isn't the cure-all, silver bullet that some claim it to be, any experienced IT professional will verify that doing so definitely reduces that amount of damage and depth of penetration by the malware. If you get infected/infested while running as an administrator, the odds are much greater that any malware will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to remove with formatting the hard drive and starting anew. The intruding malware will have the same privileges to all of the files on your hard drive that you do.
As long as you're willing and able to deal with the potential consequences, the choice is certainly yours. A technically competent user who is aware of the risks and knows how to take proper precautions can usually safely operate with administrative privileges; I do so myself. I simply don't recommend it for the average computer user.
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Bruce Chambers
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