Really Concerned About Upgrading HP Pavilion to XP Pro

[Sid Joyner]

Hi All:

I would appreciate some advice.

A friend of mine just recently purchased a HP Pavilion a350n from Amazon
which is pre-loaded with HP's OEM version of XP Home. My friend would like
for me to set it up and would like the capabilities of XP Pro; e.g., ability
for me to remote desktop to his computer for occasional maintenance,
possibly running IIS services such as a web server or ftp server.

I am really concerned about this upgrade. I tried a similar upgrade to a HP
Pavilion computer a few weeks ago with XP Home and the upgrade process
crashed. It destroyed the recovery partition and the DVD and CD-ROM drives
would not read and copy all the files during the upgrade process from the
Windows XP Pro CD. The drives would read 95% of the files but not all of
them. Making it more bizarre, depending on the drive I used (DVD or CD), it
would have problems reading and copying different files from the CD.

After working on this A LOT for 2 days and using a couple of different XP
Pro CDs (in case the new one I bought from Office Depot was defective) and
having the same problems, I finally got a install to complete with a clean
install (why this time, I don't know...). However, a lot of the drivers did
not install correctly - the ethernet card, the sound card, etc. Surely I
would think the generic XP drivers on the Microsoft XP Pro disk would
support this HP hardware.

Bottom line is I've done many a Home to XP Pro upgrade and never run into
such problems. I eventually concluded that the machine and the drives were
defective and took it back to Circuit City. I couldn't imagine that a
company like HP would produce a computer that couldn't be upgraded to XP
Pro.

I totally understand that HP will not give technical support for a computer
where the OS has been upgraded. I don't care about that. I don't ever expect
to call them for technical support and get anyone who can give me great tech
support anyway. And don't really care about the recovery partition if it's
destroyed by the process. I expect to backup and set my own restore points
anyway.

I've seen some posts here that implies I'm not the only one who has had
problems upgrading Pavilion machines to XP Pro. So I need some advice:

1. Has anyone done this without a hitch? Did you do a clean install or can I
use the XP Pro upgrade process from Windows so i can keep the installed
applications?

2. Is there any other unusual concerns I should have about this process?

I just can't believe that a person can buy a XP computer from anyone in this
day and time that can't be upgraded to XP Pro from the Microsoft CD. But
after my last experience and from some scary posts on this newsgroup, I'm
concerned about the process.

Thanks. Sorry about the long post.

Sid

[Ben Myers]

Sid,

As you might imagine, approach any XP Pro install on a Pavilion with great
caution. Why would an XP Pro install be problematical?

1. The Pavilion line is sold by HP as a consumer computer, not intended for
business use. And XP Pro equates with business use. These computer companies
all fail to understand the fine lines of dinstinction among home, SOHO, small
business, medium business, and corporate or enterprise business. So they
arbitrarily draw the line between corporate/enterprise and consumer/SOHO/small.
What separates the two? Pavilions, like other consumer computers are made
cheaply, with cheap components, and the barest minimum of research and
development historically associated with design of computers. In fact, the
Pavilion line is still probably built by Daewoo of S. Korea or perhaps some
other contract electronics manufacturer. HP's contribution to the so-called
design consists entirely the HP BIOS splash screen logo and the HP colors and
shapes of plastic on the outside of the case. Oh, yeah! The price is cheap
too. Well, people get what they pay for.

2. One other small part of the HP "R&D" effort is to pre-load the operating
system software onto the hard drive including all drivers, some of which are not
normally found on the Windows XP Home CD. Drivers are not present on a Windows
OS CD for one of two reasons: They are completely oddball ones, not used
anywhere else. They are for chipsets designed AFTER the Windows OS shipped,
hence cannot possibly be included on the Windows OS CD. I suspect that the
chipsets on the A350N are not oddball. Neither HP nor anyone else can afford to
specify oddball chipsets for products any more, due to heavy price competition.
By carefully scrutinizing the chips on the motherboard and all add-in card, one
can determine what drivers are needed and where to get them. Hint: Not from the
HP web site, which rarely has drivers to download for its computers, except
those with the Compaq brand. That's what you would have to do if you wanted to
install XP Pro correctly on the system.

If any of this sounds like a defense of HP's policies and practices, the reader
is sorely mistaken. But... BUYER BEWARE. Unfortunately, niether HP nor any
other name brand manufacturer tells you these things before you buy, so it is
hard to beware, isn't it? Nevertheless, buying a computer on the cheap is bound
to lead to some disappointment somewhere along the way. Why didn't your friend
spend a few bucks more to buy a decent computer? Why? Because he is probably
like all the other computer buyers, who flock like lemmings to supposed
bargains. And you know what happens to lemmings.

So that's an explanation which would be corroborated by HP if someone were
allowed to talk. I am not sympathetic to either HP or your friend.

.... Ben Myers

On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 12:12:08 -0800, "Sid Joyner" <sid_joyner@hotmail.com> wrote:
Hi All:I would appreciate some advice.A friend of mine just recently purchased a HP Pavilion a350n from Amazonwhich is pre-loaded with HP's OEM version of XP Home. My friend would likefor me to set it up and would like the capabilities of XP Pro; e.g., abilityfor me to remote desktop to his computer for occasional maintenance,possibly running IIS services such as a web server or ftp server.I am really concerned about this upgrade. I tried a similar upgrade to a HPPavilion computer a few weeks ago with XP Home and the upgrade processcrashed. It destroyed the recovery partition and the DVD and CD-ROM driveswould not read and copy all the files during the upgrade process from theWindows XP Pro CD. The drives would read 95% of the files but not all ofthem. Making it more bizarre, depending on the drive I used (DVD or CD), itwould have problems reading and copying different files from the CD.After working on this A LOT for 2 days and using a couple of different XPPro CDs (in case the new one I bought from Office Depot was defective) andhaving the same problems, I finally got a install to complete with a cleaninstall (why this time, I don't know...). However, a lot of the drivers didnot install correctly - the ethernet card, the sound card, etc. Surely Iwould think the generic XP drivers on the Microsoft XP Pro disk wouldsupport this HP hardware.Bottom line is I've done many a Home to XP Pro upgrade and never run intosuch problems. I eventually concluded that the machine and the drives weredefective and took it back to Circuit City. I couldn't imagine that acompany like HP would produce a computer that couldn't be upgraded to XPPro.I totally understand that HP will not give technical support for a computerwhere the OS has been upgraded. I don't care about that. I don't ever expectto call them for technical support and get anyone who can give me great techsupport anyway. And don't really care about the recovery partition if it'sdestroyed by the process. I expect to backup and set my own restore pointsanyway.I've seen some posts here that implies I'm not the only one who has hadproblems upgrading Pavilion machines to XP Pro. So I need some advice:1. Has anyone done this without a hitch? Did you do a clean install or can Iuse the XP Pro upgrade process from Windows so i can keep the installedapplications?2. Is there any other unusual concerns I should have about this process?I just can't believe that a person can buy a XP computer from anyone in thisday and time that can't be upgraded to XP Pro from the Microsoft CD. Butafter my last experience and from some scary posts on this newsgroup, I'mconcerned about the process.Thanks. Sorry about the long post.Sid

[notreallyme]

Hey Ben! If you are so disgusted with HP, then why are you contributing to
this newsgroup?

[Sid Joyner]

HI Tom:

Thanks for your reply.

You're absolutely right; same thing happened to me - the sound, ethernet,
and VGA adapter. I don't exactly remember the model number but it was a
Pavilion with a 2.08 GHz Athelon chip and 120 MB drive.

Ben raises some good point in a post reply in other newsgroupls I sent this
post to. You might want to look at his response in comp.sys.hp.hardware and
microsoft.public.windowsxp.setup_deployment. Basically, he's saying that HP
makes their computers from such cheap oddball components, that the drivers
are not found on on the XP Pro CD. He also suggests that you probably won't
find those drivers, even on the HP website. However, it looks to me that HP
has a support section for the Pavilion a350n with a complete XP driver
section at
http://h20015.www2.hp.com/en/softwareList.jhtml?reg=&cc=us&prodId=hppavilion
371643&lc=en&plc=&softitem=Microsoft%20Windows%20XP&sw_lang=en&pagetype=soft
ware. It looks as though if the drivers for these components don't install
from the pro CD, I should be able to download these drivers beforehand and
put them on a CD and load them independently.

I'm nervous about this and haven't made a decision about it yet. But wish me
luck.

Sid

"Tom Nowak" <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:6ADA8999-2225-407E-969A-44EF8AB4E4DF@microsoft.com... Join the club. I have a Pavilion 515n loaded with XP Home. Because I
like to program, I loaded XP Pro on it. The 1st time I did it, the system
would not recognize the sound, ethernet port, and VGA adapter. I
re-formatted the hard drive (wiping out the recovery partition), and tried
again. This time, the only the VGA adapter does not work. My kids can't
play games on the computer without it, so I ended up buying a new video
card. Best of luck to you.

[Sid Joyner]

Hi Ben:

Thanks for your information. It sounds logical and valuable.

This computer is a HP Pavilion a350n. It's an Intel 2.8 GHZ machine with
Nvidia GeForce 440 MX graphics, etc. When I had problems last time, it was
with the VGA adapter, ethernet, and sound card drivers after trying the XP
Pro upgrade. But it appears that all the XP drivers are available for
download at
http://h20015.www2.hp.com/en/softwareList.jhtml?reg=&cc=us&prodId=hppavilion
371643&lc=en&plc=&softitem=Microsoft%20Windows%20XP&sw_lang=en&pagetype=soft
ware. If I download these to CD prior to performing the upgrade, I would
think I could reload them if they're not available on the XP Pro CD during
installation.

My decision at this point is do I want to chance this at all. To play it
totally safe, I could put a third-party remote desktop application (PC
Anywhere?) and a third-party ftp server like Bulletproof FTP on the machine.

Also, I'm worried that if the Pro upgrade from Windows fails, the only way
to reinstall Pro would be a clean install, wiping out all the pre-installed
applications. I guess if that happened, I do have the recourse of having HP
send me the 7-CD recovery disks and restore it to a pristine condition.

As for your comments about the computer being "cheap", it's one of the
higher priced HP models. And I can't believe that Gateway or Dell are any
better. And between those three, you're talking about a huge part of the
total PC market share. I'd share your thoughts about "not having sympathy"
if he went and bought an off-brand, extremely cheap PC to save money. But
we're talking about a higher-end mainstream computer from the computer
manufacturer who sold more PCs than anyone in the world in Q4 2003 (even
topping Dell). I wouldn't expect to have to buy an expensive niche computer
to have good support on this issue.

Anyway, thanks for your help and response.

Sid

<ben_myers_spam_me_not @ charter.net (Ben Myers)> wrote in message
news:4016cd52.692283@news.charter.net... Sid, As you might imagine, approach any XP Pro install on a Pavilion with great caution. Why would an XP Pro install be problematical? 1. The Pavilion line is sold by HP as a consumer computer, not intended
for business use. And XP Pro equates with business use. These computer
companies all fail to understand the fine lines of dinstinction among home, SOHO,
small business, medium business, and corporate or enterprise business. So they arbitrarily draw the line between corporate/enterprise and
consumer/SOHO/small. What separates the two? Pavilions, like other consumer computers are made cheaply, with cheap components, and the barest minimum of research and development historically associated with design of computers. In fact,
the Pavilion line is still probably built by Daewoo of S. Korea or perhaps
some other contract electronics manufacturer. HP's contribution to the
so-called design consists entirely the HP BIOS splash screen logo and the HP colors
and shapes of plastic on the outside of the case. Oh, yeah! The price is
cheap too. Well, people get what they pay for. 2. One other small part of the HP "R&D" effort is to pre-load the
operating system software onto the hard drive including all drivers, some of which
are not normally found on the Windows XP Home CD. Drivers are not present on a
Windows OS CD for one of two reasons: They are completely oddball ones, not used anywhere else. They are for chipsets designed AFTER the Windows OS
shipped, hence cannot possibly be included on the Windows OS CD. I suspect that
the chipsets on the A350N are not oddball. Neither HP nor anyone else can
afford to specify oddball chipsets for products any more, due to heavy price
competition. By carefully scrutinizing the chips on the motherboard and all add-in
card, one can determine what drivers are needed and where to get them. Hint: Not
from the HP web site, which rarely has drivers to download for its computers,
except those with the Compaq brand. That's what you would have to do if you
wanted to install XP Pro correctly on the system. If any of this sounds like a defense of HP's policies and practices, the
reader is sorely mistaken. But... BUYER BEWARE. Unfortunately, niether HP nor
any other name brand manufacturer tells you these things before you buy, so it
is hard to beware, isn't it? Nevertheless, buying a computer on the cheap is
bound to lead to some disappointment somewhere along the way. Why didn't your
friend spend a few bucks more to buy a decent computer? Why? Because he is
probably like all the other computer buyers, who flock like lemmings to supposed bargains. And you know what happens to lemmings. So that's an explanation which would be corroborated by HP if someone were allowed to talk. I am not sympathetic to either HP or your friend. ... Ben Myers On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 12:12:08 -0800, "Sid Joyner" <sid_joyner@hotmail.com>
wrote:Hi All:I would appreciate some advice.A friend of mine just recently purchased a HP Pavilion a350n from Amazonwhich is pre-loaded with HP's OEM version of XP Home. My friend would
likefor me to set it up and would like the capabilities of XP Pro; e.g.,
abilityfor me to remote desktop to his computer for occasional maintenance,possibly running IIS services such as a web server or ftp server.I am really concerned about this upgrade. I tried a similar upgrade to a
HPPavilion computer a few weeks ago with XP Home and the upgrade processcrashed. It destroyed the recovery partition and the DVD and CD-ROM
driveswould not read and copy all the files during the upgrade process from theWindows XP Pro CD. The drives would read 95% of the files but not all ofthem. Making it more bizarre, depending on the drive I used (DVD or CD),
itwould have problems reading and copying different files from the CD.After working on this A LOT for 2 days and using a couple of different XP
Pro CDs (in case the new one I bought from Office Depot was defective)
andhaving the same problems, I finally got a install to complete with a
cleaninstall (why this time, I don't know...). However, a lot of the drivers
didnot install correctly - the ethernet card, the sound card, etc. Surely Iwould think the generic XP drivers on the Microsoft XP Pro disk wouldsupport this HP hardware.Bottom line is I've done many a Home to XP Pro upgrade and never run intosuch problems. I eventually concluded that the machine and the drives
weredefective and took it back to Circuit City. I couldn't imagine that acompany like HP would produce a computer that couldn't be upgraded to XPPro.I totally understand that HP will not give technical support for a
computerwhere the OS has been upgraded. I don't care about that. I don't ever
expectto call them for technical support and get anyone who can give me great
techsupport anyway. And don't really care about the recovery partition if
it'sdestroyed by the process. I expect to backup and set my own restore
pointsanyway.I've seen some posts here that implies I'm not the only one who has hadproblems upgrading Pavilion machines to XP Pro. So I need some advice:1. Has anyone done this without a hitch? Did you do a clean install or
can Iuse the XP Pro upgrade process from Windows so i can keep the installedapplications?2. Is there any other unusual concerns I should have about this process?I just can't believe that a person can buy a XP computer from anyone in
thisday and time that can't be upgraded to XP Pro from the Microsoft CD. Butafter my last experience and from some scary posts on this newsgroup, I'mconcerned about the process.Thanks. Sorry about the long post.Sid

[Charles Howse]

I recently bought one of the Pavillion a305w boxes and am having one helluva
time trying to figure out the specifics on upgrading the RAM for it. I get
conflicting advice on whether to buy ECC or non-ecc, parity or non-parity.
Can you enlighten me? Thanks.

"Sid Joyner" <sid_joyner@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:101dpj46gvgqu42@corp.supernews.com... Hi Ben: Thanks for your information. It sounds logical and valuable. This computer is a HP Pavilion a350n. It's an Intel 2.8 GHZ machine with Nvidia GeForce 440 MX graphics, etc. When I had problems last time, it was with the VGA adapter, ethernet, and sound card drivers after trying the XP Pro upgrade. But it appears that all the XP drivers are available for download at
http://h20015.www2.hp.com/en/softwareList.jhtml?reg=&cc=us&prodId=hppavilion
371643&lc=en&plc=&softitem=Microsoft%20Windows%20XP&sw_lang=en&pagetype=soft ware. If I download these to CD prior to performing the upgrade, I would think I could reload them if they're not available on the XP Pro CD during installation. My decision at this point is do I want to chance this at all. To play it totally safe, I could put a third-party remote desktop application (PC Anywhere?) and a third-party ftp server like Bulletproof FTP on the
machine. Also, I'm worried that if the Pro upgrade from Windows fails, the only way to reinstall Pro would be a clean install, wiping out all the
pre-installed applications. I guess if that happened, I do have the recourse of having
HP send me the 7-CD recovery disks and restore it to a pristine condition. As for your comments about the computer being "cheap", it's one of the higher priced HP models. And I can't believe that Gateway or Dell are any better. And between those three, you're talking about a huge part of the total PC market share. I'd share your thoughts about "not having sympathy" if he went and bought an off-brand, extremely cheap PC to save money. But we're talking about a higher-end mainstream computer from the computer manufacturer who sold more PCs than anyone in the world in Q4 2003 (even topping Dell). I wouldn't expect to have to buy an expensive niche
computer to have good support on this issue. Anyway, thanks for your help and response. Sid <ben_myers_spam_me_not @ charter.net (Ben Myers)> wrote in message news:4016cd52.692283@news.charter.net... Sid, As you might imagine, approach any XP Pro install on a Pavilion with
great caution. Why would an XP Pro install be problematical? 1. The Pavilion line is sold by HP as a consumer computer, not intended for business use. And XP Pro equates with business use. These computer companies all fail to understand the fine lines of dinstinction among home, SOHO, small business, medium business, and corporate or enterprise business. So
they arbitrarily draw the line between corporate/enterprise and consumer/SOHO/small. What separates the two? Pavilions, like other consumer computers are
made cheaply, with cheap components, and the barest minimum of research and development historically associated with design of computers. In fact, the Pavilion line is still probably built by Daewoo of S. Korea or perhaps some other contract electronics manufacturer. HP's contribution to the so-called design consists entirely the HP BIOS splash screen logo and the HP
colors and shapes of plastic on the outside of the case. Oh, yeah! The price is cheap too. Well, people get what they pay for. 2. One other small part of the HP "R&D" effort is to pre-load the operating system software onto the hard drive including all drivers, some of which are not normally found on the Windows XP Home CD. Drivers are not present on a Windows OS CD for one of two reasons: They are completely oddball ones, not
used anywhere else. They are for chipsets designed AFTER the Windows OS shipped, hence cannot possibly be included on the Windows OS CD. I suspect that the chipsets on the A350N are not oddball. Neither HP nor anyone else can afford to specify oddball chipsets for products any more, due to heavy price competition. By carefully scrutinizing the chips on the motherboard and all add-in card, one can determine what drivers are needed and where to get them. Hint: Not from the HP web site, which rarely has drivers to download for its computers, except those with the Compaq brand. That's what you would have to do if you wanted to install XP Pro correctly on the system. If any of this sounds like a defense of HP's policies and practices, the reader is sorely mistaken. But... BUYER BEWARE. Unfortunately, niether HP nor any other name brand manufacturer tells you these things before you buy, so
it is hard to beware, isn't it? Nevertheless, buying a computer on the cheap
is bound to lead to some disappointment somewhere along the way. Why didn't your friend spend a few bucks more to buy a decent computer? Why? Because he is probably like all the other computer buyers, who flock like lemmings to supposed bargains. And you know what happens to lemmings. So that's an explanation which would be corroborated by HP if someone
were allowed to talk. I am not sympathetic to either HP or your friend. ... Ben Myers On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 12:12:08 -0800, "Sid Joyner"
<sid_joyner@hotmail.com> wrote:Hi All:I would appreciate some advice.A friend of mine just recently purchased a HP Pavilion a350n from
Amazonwhich is pre-loaded with HP's OEM version of XP Home. My friend would likefor me to set it up and would like the capabilities of XP Pro; e.g., abilityfor me to remote desktop to his computer for occasional maintenance,possibly running IIS services such as a web server or ftp server.I am really concerned about this upgrade. I tried a similar upgrade to
a HPPavilion computer a few weeks ago with XP Home and the upgrade processcrashed. It destroyed the recovery partition and the DVD and CD-ROM driveswould not read and copy all the files during the upgrade process from
theWindows XP Pro CD. The drives would read 95% of the files but not all
ofthem. Making it more bizarre, depending on the drive I used (DVD or
CD), itwould have problems reading and copying different files from the CD.After working on this A LOT for 2 days and using a couple of different
XPPro CDs (in case the new one I bought from Office Depot was defective) andhaving the same problems, I finally got a install to complete with a cleaninstall (why this time, I don't know...). However, a lot of the drivers didnot install correctly - the ethernet card, the sound card, etc. Surely
Iwould think the generic XP drivers on the Microsoft XP Pro disk wouldsupport this HP hardware.Bottom line is I've done many a Home to XP Pro upgrade and never run
intosuch problems. I eventually concluded that the machine and the drives weredefective and took it back to Circuit City. I couldn't imagine that acompany like HP would produce a computer that couldn't be upgraded to
XPPro.I totally understand that HP will not give technical support for a computerwhere the OS has been upgraded. I don't care about that. I don't ever expectto call them for technical support and get anyone who can give me great techsupport anyway. And don't really care about the recovery partition if it'sdestroyed by the process. I expect to backup and set my own restore pointsanyway.I've seen some posts here that implies I'm not the only one who has hadproblems upgrading Pavilion machines to XP Pro. So I need some advice:1. Has anyone done this without a hitch? Did you do a clean install or can Iuse the XP Pro upgrade process from Windows so i can keep the installedapplications?2. Is there any other unusual concerns I should have about this
process?I just can't believe that a person can buy a XP computer from anyone in thisday and time that can't be upgraded to XP Pro from the Microsoft CD.
Butafter my last experience and from some scary posts on this newsgroup,
I'mconcerned about the process.Thanks. Sorry about the long post.Sid

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Visit www.crucial.com and use the free RAM configurator.

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User

Be Smart! Protect your PC!
http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Ceg" <me@privacy.net> wrote in message:
news:nKBRb.495$Le3.472@okepread04...

| I recently bought one of the Pavillion a305w boxes and am having one helluva
| time trying to figure out the specifics on upgrading the RAM for it. I get
| conflicting advice on whether to buy ECC or non-ecc, parity or non-parity.
| Can you enlighten me? Thanks.

[Sid Joyner]

Under the FAQ section of the HP Customer Care section for the Pavilion
a305w, there a entry for "Memory Specifications and Upgrading RAM". Here's
the link:
http://h20015.www2.hp.com/en/taskPageSelect.jhtml?reg=&plc=&lc=en&cc=us&prod
Id=hppavilion362754&pagetype=faq&docparent=faq

Hope it's what you're looking for.

Sid

"Ceg" <me@privacy.net> wrote in message news:nKBRb.495$Le3.472@okepread04... I recently bought one of the Pavillion a305w boxes and am having one
helluva time trying to figure out the specifics on upgrading the RAM for it. I
get conflicting advice on whether to buy ECC or non-ecc, parity or non-parity. Can you enlighten me? Thanks. "Sid Joyner" <sid_joyner@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:101dpj46gvgqu42@corp.supernews.com... Hi Ben: Thanks for your information. It sounds logical and valuable. This computer is a HP Pavilion a350n. It's an Intel 2.8 GHZ machine with Nvidia GeForce 440 MX graphics, etc. When I had problems last time, it
was with the VGA adapter, ethernet, and sound card drivers after trying the
XP Pro upgrade. But it appears that all the XP drivers are available for download at
http://h20015.www2.hp.com/en/softwareList.jhtml?reg=&cc=us&prodId=hppavilion
371643&lc=en&plc=&softitem=Microsoft%20Windows%20XP&sw_lang=en&pagetype=soft ware. If I download these to CD prior to performing the upgrade, I would think I could reload them if they're not available on the XP Pro CD
during installation. My decision at this point is do I want to chance this at all. To play it totally safe, I could put a third-party remote desktop application (PC Anywhere?) and a third-party ftp server like Bulletproof FTP on the machine. Also, I'm worried that if the Pro upgrade from Windows fails, the only
way to reinstall Pro would be a clean install, wiping out all the pre-installed applications. I guess if that happened, I do have the recourse of having HP send me the 7-CD recovery disks and restore it to a pristine condition. As for your comments about the computer being "cheap", it's one of the higher priced HP models. And I can't believe that Gateway or Dell are
any better. And between those three, you're talking about a huge part of the total PC market share. I'd share your thoughts about "not having
sympathy" if he went and bought an off-brand, extremely cheap PC to save money.
But we're talking about a higher-end mainstream computer from the computer manufacturer who sold more PCs than anyone in the world in Q4 2003 (even topping Dell). I wouldn't expect to have to buy an expensive niche computer to have good support on this issue. Anyway, thanks for your help and response. Sid <ben_myers_spam_me_not @ charter.net (Ben Myers)> wrote in message news:4016cd52.692283@news.charter.net... Sid, As you might imagine, approach any XP Pro install on a Pavilion with great caution. Why would an XP Pro install be problematical? 1. The Pavilion line is sold by HP as a consumer computer, not
intended for business use. And XP Pro equates with business use. These computer companies all fail to understand the fine lines of dinstinction among home,
SOHO, small business, medium business, and corporate or enterprise business. So they arbitrarily draw the line between corporate/enterprise and consumer/SOHO/small. What separates the two? Pavilions, like other consumer computers are made cheaply, with cheap components, and the barest minimum of research and development historically associated with design of computers. In
fact, the Pavilion line is still probably built by Daewoo of S. Korea or perhaps some other contract electronics manufacturer. HP's contribution to the so-called design consists entirely the HP BIOS splash screen logo and the HP colors and shapes of plastic on the outside of the case. Oh, yeah! The price is cheap too. Well, people get what they pay for. 2. One other small part of the HP "R&D" effort is to pre-load the operating system software onto the hard drive including all drivers, some of
which are not normally found on the Windows XP Home CD. Drivers are not present on
a Windows OS CD for one of two reasons: They are completely oddball ones, not used anywhere else. They are for chipsets designed AFTER the Windows OS shipped, hence cannot possibly be included on the Windows OS CD. I suspect
that the chipsets on the A350N are not oddball. Neither HP nor anyone else can afford to specify oddball chipsets for products any more, due to heavy price competition. By carefully scrutinizing the chips on the motherboard and all add-in card, one can determine what drivers are needed and where to get them. Hint:
Not from the HP web site, which rarely has drivers to download for its computers, except those with the Compaq brand. That's what you would have to do if you wanted to install XP Pro correctly on the system. If any of this sounds like a defense of HP's policies and practices,
the reader is sorely mistaken. But... BUYER BEWARE. Unfortunately, niether HP
nor any other name brand manufacturer tells you these things before you buy,
so it is hard to beware, isn't it? Nevertheless, buying a computer on the
cheap is bound to lead to some disappointment somewhere along the way. Why didn't
your friend spend a few bucks more to buy a decent computer? Why? Because he is probably like all the other computer buyers, who flock like lemmings to
supposed bargains. And you know what happens to lemmings. So that's an explanation which would be corroborated by HP if someone were allowed to talk. I am not sympathetic to either HP or your friend. ... Ben Myers On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 12:12:08 -0800, "Sid Joyner" <sid_joyner@hotmail.com> wrote: >Hi All: > >I would appreciate some advice. > >A friend of mine just recently purchased a HP Pavilion a350n from Amazon >which is pre-loaded with HP's OEM version of XP Home. My friend would like >for me to set it up and would like the capabilities of XP Pro; e.g., ability >for me to remote desktop to his computer for occasional maintenance, >possibly running IIS services such as a web server or ftp server. > >I am really concerned about this upgrade. I tried a similar upgrade
to a HP >Pavilion computer a few weeks ago with XP Home and the upgrade
process >crashed. It destroyed the recovery partition and the DVD and CD-ROM drives >would not read and copy all the files during the upgrade process from the >Windows XP Pro CD. The drives would read 95% of the files but not all of >them. Making it more bizarre, depending on the drive I used (DVD or CD), it >would have problems reading and copying different files from the CD. > >After working on this A LOT for 2 days and using a couple of
different XP >Pro CDs (in case the new one I bought from Office Depot was
defective) and >having the same problems, I finally got a install to complete with a clean >install (why this time, I don't know...). However, a lot of the
drivers did >not install correctly - the ethernet card, the sound card, etc.
Surely I >would think the generic XP drivers on the Microsoft XP Pro disk would >support this HP hardware. > >Bottom line is I've done many a Home to XP Pro upgrade and never run into >such problems. I eventually concluded that the machine and the drives were >defective and took it back to Circuit City. I couldn't imagine that a >company like HP would produce a computer that couldn't be upgraded to XP >Pro. > >I totally understand that HP will not give technical support for a computer >where the OS has been upgraded. I don't care about that. I don't ever expect >to call them for technical support and get anyone who can give me
great tech >support anyway. And don't really care about the recovery partition if it's >destroyed by the process. I expect to backup and set my own restore points >anyway. > >I've seen some posts here that implies I'm not the only one who has
had >problems upgrading Pavilion machines to XP Pro. So I need some
advice: > >1. Has anyone done this without a hitch? Did you do a clean install
or can I >use the XP Pro upgrade process from Windows so i can keep the
installed >applications? > >2. Is there any other unusual concerns I should have about this process? > >I just can't believe that a person can buy a XP computer from anyone
in this >day and time that can't be upgraded to XP Pro from the Microsoft CD. But >after my last experience and from some scary posts on this newsgroup, I'm >concerned about the process. > >Thanks. Sorry about the long post. > >Sid > >

[Ben Myers]

Sid et al,

Not quite. Here is what I said earlier: "Drivers are not present on a Windows
OS CD for one of two reasons: They are completely oddball ones, not used
anywhere else. They are for chipsets designed AFTER the Windows OS shipped,
hence cannot possibly be included on the Windows OS CD. I suspect that the
chipsets on the A350N are not oddball. Neither HP nor anyone else can afford to
specify oddball chipsets for products any more, due to heavy price competition."

In short, HP motherboards most likely have standard chipsets for which the
drivers are not present on the Windows XP CD. NOT oddball ones.

Having restated my point, I must confess to thinking that the Athlon's chipset
support is less ubiquitous than Intel's 810, 815, 820, 845, 850, 865 and 875
mobo chipsets. Are the Athlon chipsets oddball? No, not really. Just less
prevalent than Intel's... Ben Myers

On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 14:07:51 -0800, "Sid Joyner" <sid_joyner@hotmail.com> wrote:
HI Tom:Thanks for your reply.You're absolutely right; same thing happened to me - the sound, ethernet,and VGA adapter. I don't exactly remember the model number but it was aPavilion with a 2.08 GHz Athelon chip and 120 MB drive.Ben raises some good point in a post reply in other newsgroupls I sent thispost to. You might want to look at his response in comp.sys.hp.hardware andmicrosoft.public.windowsxp.setup_deployment. Basically, he's saying that HPmakes their computers from such cheap oddball components, that the driversare not found on on the XP Pro CD. He also suggests that you probably won'tfind those drivers, even on the HP website. However, it looks to me that HPhas a support section for the Pavilion a350n with a complete XP driversection athttp://h20015.www2.hp.com/en/softwareList.jhtml?reg=&cc=us&prodId=hppavilion371643&lc=en&plc=&softitem=Microsoft%20Windows%20XP&sw_lang=en&pagetype=software. It looks as though if the drivers for these components don't installfrom the pro CD, I should be able to download these drivers beforehand andput them on a CD and load them independently.I'm nervous about this and haven't made a decision about it yet. But wish meluck.Sid"Tom Nowak" <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in messagenews:6ADA8999-2225-407E-969A-44EF8AB4E4DF@microsoft.com... Join the club. I have a Pavilion 515n loaded with XP Home. Because Ilike to program, I loaded XP Pro on it. The 1st time I did it, the systemwould not recognize the sound, ethernet port, and VGA adapter. Ire-formatted the hard drive (wiping out the recovery partition), and triedagain. This time, the only the VGA adapter does not work. My kids can'tplay games on the computer without it, so I ended up buying a new videocard. Best of luck to you.

[Ben Myers]

Well, some people appreciate honest and frank answers, especially when the
responses lead the way to some problems solved.

I am as disgusted with HP as I am with the whole computer industry which is
attempting to carry planned obsolesence to an extreme that we have never ever
seen prior to computers. (Buying a new car or washer or dryer or TV or
refrigerator is and was never like this.) Part of the trend is to build
computers so cheaply that it is more cost-effective to throw them away than it
is to upgrade either hardware or software. Another piece of the action is
Microsoft's apparent collusion with name brand vendors (especially printers and
scanners, and especially HP products) by changing software driver APIs with
every new release, thereby causing device drivers to break. So the device
driver breaks, the name brand vendor (read HP here) chooses either to not do any
driver for the new release or to do a bare-bones minimal driver (read HP inkjets
and printer-scanner-copier inkjet products here). So then the device becomes
unusable with the new release or it is usable with much reduced capabilities,
and the owner has the bad choice of replacing a still perfectly functional
device or using it as minimally supported by the new operating system release.

The above scenario has been reported 1000x over in this and other newsgroups by
frustrated computer owners. Neither MicroBloat, nor the name brand
manufacturers, nor the led-around-by-the-balls trade press have a shred of the
common decency to disclose any of this in advance of a sale. So somebody buys a
new computer with XPee, and finds out they also have to throw money into a
bottomless pit to replace still-useful software, printers, scanners, etc.

Um, don't get me started... Ben Myers

On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 21:29:23 GMT, "notreallyme" <notreallyme@lousygolf.com>
wrote:
Hey Ben! If you are so disgusted with HP, then why are you contributing tothis newsgroup?

[Ben Myers]

Sid,

Interesting URL you supplied. This leads me to believe that there is an
ex-Compaq hand in structuring driver downloads. The file names all have the
Compaq SPnnnnnn.exe nomenclature, where SP stands for service pack. This URL
also represents a 1000% improvement over the not too helpful motherboard support
garbage associated with older systems. Maybe my (and others, too) bitching and
complaing on this newsgroup got thru to Carly and friends.

The other way to go about it would be to download the nVidia drivers from the
nVidia web site, and the motherboard-related drivers (audio, Ethernet,
underlying chipset) from the Intel web site. Another URL tied to the one you
reference describes the motherboard as an "ASUS P4SD-LA without Integrated
Graphics", and states that the board uses the Intel 865 chipset, very much a
standard chipset which was designed and shipped AFTER XP was released, hence the
absence of 865 chipset (and nVidia MX400) drivers on the Windows XP Pro (or XP
Home) CD.

Once again, these chipsets are not oddballs, just fairly standard ones designed
after XP was released. This sort of thing happens all the time with computers
and operating systems, which is why I have become accustomed to reading
identifiers on chips... Ben Myers

On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 14:29:21 -0800, "Sid Joyner" <sid_joyner@hotmail.com> wrote:
Hi Ben:Thanks for your information. It sounds logical and valuable.This computer is a HP Pavilion a350n. It's an Intel 2.8 GHZ machine withNvidia GeForce 440 MX graphics, etc. When I had problems last time, it waswith the VGA adapter, ethernet, and sound card drivers after trying the XPPro upgrade. But it appears that all the XP drivers are available fordownload athttp://h20015.www2.hp.com/en/softwareList.jhtml?reg=&cc=us&prodId=hppavilion371643&lc=en&plc=&softitem=Microsoft%20Windows%20XP&sw_lang=en&pagetype=software. If I download these to CD prior to performing the upgrade, I wouldthink I could reload them if they're not available on the XP Pro CD duringinstallation.My decision at this point is do I want to chance this at all. To play ittotally safe, I could put a third-party remote desktop application (PCAnywhere?) and a third-party ftp server like Bulletproof FTP on the machine.Also, I'm worried that if the Pro upgrade from Windows fails, the only wayto reinstall Pro would be a clean install, wiping out all the pre-installedapplications. I guess if that happened, I do have the recourse of having HPsend me the 7-CD recovery disks and restore it to a pristine condition.As for your comments about the computer being "cheap", it's one of thehigher priced HP models. And I can't believe that Gateway or Dell are anybetter. And between those three, you're talking about a huge part of thetotal PC market share. I'd share your thoughts about "not having sympathy"if he went and bought an off-brand, extremely cheap PC to save money. Butwe're talking about a higher-end mainstream computer from the computermanufacturer who sold more PCs than anyone in the world in Q4 2003 (eventopping Dell). I wouldn't expect to have to buy an expensive niche computerto have good support on this issue.Anyway, thanks for your help and response.Sid<ben_myers_spam_me_not @ charter.net (Ben Myers)> wrote in messagenews:4016cd52.692283@news.charter.net... Sid, As you might imagine, approach any XP Pro install on a Pavilion with great caution. Why would an XP Pro install be problematical? 1. The Pavilion line is sold by HP as a consumer computer, not intendedfor business use. And XP Pro equates with business use. These computercompanies all fail to understand the fine lines of dinstinction among home, SOHO,small business, medium business, and corporate or enterprise business. So they arbitrarily draw the line between corporate/enterprise andconsumer/SOHO/small. What separates the two? Pavilions, like other consumer computers are made cheaply, with cheap components, and the barest minimum of research and development historically associated with design of computers. In fact,the Pavilion line is still probably built by Daewoo of S. Korea or perhapssome other contract electronics manufacturer. HP's contribution to theso-called design consists entirely the HP BIOS splash screen logo and the HP colorsand shapes of plastic on the outside of the case. Oh, yeah! The price ischeap too. Well, people get what they pay for. 2. One other small part of the HP "R&D" effort is to pre-load theoperating system software onto the hard drive including all drivers, some of whichare not normally found on the Windows XP Home CD. Drivers are not present on aWindows OS CD for one of two reasons: They are completely oddball ones, not used anywhere else. They are for chipsets designed AFTER the Windows OSshipped, hence cannot possibly be included on the Windows OS CD. I suspect thatthe chipsets on the A350N are not oddball. Neither HP nor anyone else canafford to specify oddball chipsets for products any more, due to heavy pricecompetition. By carefully scrutinizing the chips on the motherboard and all add-incard, one can determine what drivers are needed and where to get them. Hint: Notfrom the HP web site, which rarely has drivers to download for its computers,except those with the Compaq brand. That's what you would have to do if youwanted to install XP Pro correctly on the system. If any of this sounds like a defense of HP's policies and practices, thereader is sorely mistaken. But... BUYER BEWARE. Unfortunately, niether HP norany other name brand manufacturer tells you these things before you buy, so itis hard to beware, isn't it? Nevertheless, buying a computer on the cheap isbound to lead to some disappointment somewhere along the way. Why didn't yourfriend spend a few bucks more to buy a decent computer? Why? Because he isprobably like all the other computer buyers, who flock like lemmings to supposed bargains. And you know what happens to lemmings. So that's an explanation which would be corroborated by HP if someone were allowed to talk. I am not sympathetic to either HP or your friend. ... Ben Myers On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 12:12:08 -0800, "Sid Joyner" <sid_joyner@hotmail.com>wrote:Hi All:I would appreciate some advice.A friend of mine just recently purchased a HP Pavilion a350n from Amazonwhich is pre-loaded with HP's OEM version of XP Home. My friend wouldlikefor me to set it up and would like the capabilities of XP Pro; e.g.,abilityfor me to remote desktop to his computer for occasional maintenance,possibly running IIS services such as a web server or ftp server.I am really concerned about this upgrade. I tried a similar upgrade to aHPPavilion computer a few weeks ago with XP Home and the upgrade processcrashed. It destroyed the recovery partition and the DVD and CD-ROMdriveswould not read and copy all the files during the upgrade process from theWindows XP Pro CD. The drives would read 95% of the files but not all ofthem. Making it more bizarre, depending on the drive I used (DVD or CD),itwould have problems reading and copying different files from the CD.After working on this A LOT for 2 days and using a couple of different XPPro CDs (in case the new one I bought from Office Depot was defective)andhaving the same problems, I finally got a install to complete with acleaninstall (why this time, I don't know...). However, a lot of the driversdidnot install correctly - the ethernet card, the sound card, etc. Surely Iwould think the generic XP drivers on the Microsoft XP Pro disk wouldsupport this HP hardware.Bottom line is I've done many a Home to XP Pro upgrade and never run intosuch problems. I eventually concluded that the machine and the drivesweredefective and took it back to Circuit City. I couldn't imagine that acompany like HP would produce a computer that couldn't be upgraded to XPPro.I totally understand that HP will not give technical support for acomputerwhere the OS has been upgraded. I don't care about that. I don't everexpectto call them for technical support and get anyone who can give me greattechsupport anyway. And don't really care about the recovery partition ifit'sdestroyed by the process. I expect to backup and set my own restorepointsanyway.I've seen some posts here that implies I'm not the only one who has hadproblems upgrading Pavilion machines to XP Pro. So I need some advice:1. Has anyone done this without a hitch? Did you do a clean install orcan Iuse the XP Pro upgrade process from Windows so i can keep the installedapplications?2. Is there any other unusual concerns I should have about this process?I just can't believe that a person can buy a XP computer from anyone inthisday and time that can't be upgraded to XP Pro from the Microsoft CD. Butafter my last experience and from some scary posts on this newsgroup, I'mconcerned about the process.Thanks. Sorry about the long post.Sid

[Sid Joyner]

Thanks Ben:

That being said, I think I have found all the HP Pavilion a350n-specific XP
drivers on the HP Customer Care site. Here's the URL:

http://h20015.www2.hp.com/en/softwareList.jhtml?reg=&cc=us&prodId=hppavilion
371643&lc=en&plc=&softitem=Microsoft%20Windows%20XP&sw_lang=en&pagetype=soft
ware.

If I download these to CD prior to upgrading to XP Pro, I'd think I'd be
safe. Wouldn't you?

Thanks Ben for your time.

Sid

<ben_myers_spam_me_not @ charter.net (Ben Myers)> wrote in message
news:4016eaff.8290900@news.charter.net... Sid et al, Not quite. Here is what I said earlier: "Drivers are not present on a
Windows OS CD for one of two reasons: They are completely oddball ones, not used anywhere else. They are for chipsets designed AFTER the Windows OS
shipped, hence cannot possibly be included on the Windows OS CD. I suspect that
the chipsets on the A350N are not oddball. Neither HP nor anyone else can
afford to specify oddball chipsets for products any more, due to heavy price
competition." In short, HP motherboards most likely have standard chipsets for which the drivers are not present on the Windows XP CD. NOT oddball ones. Having restated my point, I must confess to thinking that the Athlon's
chipset support is less ubiquitous than Intel's 810, 815, 820, 845, 850, 865 and
875 mobo chipsets. Are the Athlon chipsets oddball? No, not really. Just
less prevalent than Intel's... Ben Myers On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 14:07:51 -0800, "Sid Joyner" <sid_joyner@hotmail.com>
wrote:HI Tom:Thanks for your reply.You're absolutely right; same thing happened to me - the sound, ethernet,and VGA adapter. I don't exactly remember the model number but it was aPavilion with a 2.08 GHz Athelon chip and 120 MB drive.Ben raises some good point in a post reply in other newsgroupls I sent
thispost to. You might want to look at his response in comp.sys.hp.hardware
andmicrosoft.public.windowsxp.setup_deployment. Basically, he's saying that
HPmakes their computers from such cheap oddball components, that the
driversare not found on on the XP Pro CD. He also suggests that you probably
won'tfind those drivers, even on the HP website. However, it looks to me that
HPhas a support section for the Pavilion a350n with a complete XP driversection athttp://h20015.www2.hp.com/en/softwareList.jhtml?reg=&cc=us&prodId=hppavilio
n371643&lc=en&plc=&softitem=Microsoft%20Windows%20XP&sw_lang=en&pagetype=sof
tware. It looks as though if the drivers for these components don't
installfrom the pro CD, I should be able to download these drivers beforehand
andput them on a CD and load them independently.I'm nervous about this and haven't made a decision about it yet. But wish
meluck.Sid"Tom Nowak" <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in messagenews:6ADA8999-2225-407E-969A-44EF8AB4E4DF@microsoft.com... Join the club. I have a Pavilion 515n loaded with XP Home. Because Ilike to program, I loaded XP Pro on it. The 1st time I did it, the
systemwould not recognize the sound, ethernet port, and VGA adapter. Ire-formatted the hard drive (wiping out the recovery partition), and
triedagain. This time, the only the VGA adapter does not work. My kids can'tplay games on the computer without it, so I ended up buying a new videocard. Best of luck to you.

[Ben Myers]

Sid,

Yes, burn a CD with all the drivers for the system at the HP web site. That
should work out. In a way, the most critical one is the network driver. Once
the system is up and running with a network connection, it is very easy to
download additional drivers if required... Ben

On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 15:26:25 -0800, "Sid Joyner" <sid_joyner@hotmail.com> wrote:
Thanks Ben:That being said, I think I have found all the HP Pavilion a350n-specific XPdrivers on the HP Customer Care site. Here's the URL:http://h20015.www2.hp.com/en/softwareList.jhtml?reg=&cc=us&prodId=hppavilion371643&lc=en&plc=&softitem=Microsoft%20Windows%20XP&sw_lang=en&pagetype=software.If I download these to CD prior to upgrading to XP Pro, I'd think I'd besafe. Wouldn't you?Thanks Ben for your time.Sid<ben_myers_spam_me_not @ charter.net (Ben Myers)> wrote in messagenews:4016eaff.8290900@news.charter.net... Sid et al, Not quite. Here is what I said earlier: "Drivers are not present on aWindows OS CD for one of two reasons: They are completely oddball ones, not used anywhere else. They are for chipsets designed AFTER the Windows OSshipped, hence cannot possibly be included on the Windows OS CD. I suspect thatthe chipsets on the A350N are not oddball. Neither HP nor anyone else canafford to specify oddball chipsets for products any more, due to heavy pricecompetition." In short, HP motherboards most likely have standard chipsets for which the drivers are not present on the Windows XP CD. NOT oddball ones. Having restated my point, I must confess to thinking that the Athlon'schipset support is less ubiquitous than Intel's 810, 815, 820, 845, 850, 865 and875 mobo chipsets. Are the Athlon chipsets oddball? No, not really. Justless prevalent than Intel's... Ben Myers On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 14:07:51 -0800, "Sid Joyner" <sid_joyner@hotmail.com>wrote:HI Tom:Thanks for your reply.You're absolutely right; same thing happened to me - the sound, ethernet,and VGA adapter. I don't exactly remember the model number but it was aPavilion with a 2.08 GHz Athelon chip and 120 MB drive.Ben raises some good point in a post reply in other newsgroupls I sentthispost to. You might want to look at his response in comp.sys.hp.hardwareandmicrosoft.public.windowsxp.setup_deployment. Basically, he's saying thatHPmakes their computers from such cheap oddball components, that thedriversare not found on on the XP Pro CD. He also suggests that you probablywon'tfind those drivers, even on the HP website. However, it looks to me thatHPhas a support section for the Pavilion a350n with a complete XP driversection athttp://h20015.www2.hp.com/en/softwareList.jhtml?reg=&cc=us&prodId=hppavilion371643&lc=en&plc=&softitem=Microsoft%20Windows%20XP&sw_lang=en&pagetype=software. It looks as though if the drivers for these components don'tinstallfrom the pro CD, I should be able to download these drivers beforehandandput them on a CD and load them independently.I'm nervous about this and haven't made a decision about it yet. But wishmeluck.Sid"Tom Nowak" <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in messagenews:6ADA8999-2225-407E-969A-44EF8AB4E4DF@microsoft.com...> Join the club. I have a Pavilion 515n loaded with XP Home. Because Ilike to program, I loaded XP Pro on it. The 1st time I did it, thesystemwould not recognize the sound, ethernet port, and VGA adapter. Ire-formatted the hard drive (wiping out the recovery partition), andtriedagain. This time, the only the VGA adapter does not work. My kids can'tplay games on the computer without it, so I ended up buying a new videocard. Best of luck to you.

[craigm]

"Sid Joyner" <sid_joyner@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:101dhhd3b9bcm4c@corp.supernews.com... Hi All: I would appreciate some advice. A friend of mine just recently purchased a HP Pavilion a350n from Amazon which is pre-loaded with HP's OEM version of XP Home. My friend would like for me to set it up and would like the capabilities of XP Pro; e.g.,
ability for me to remote desktop to his computer for occasional maintenance, possibly running IIS services such as a web server or ftp server.

As far as remote access, why not use MS Netmeeting which probably comes on
the computer? Another option is VNC.

There may also be free server utilities available.
I am really concerned about this upgrade. I tried a similar upgrade to a
HP Pavilion computer a few weeks ago with XP Home and the upgrade process crashed. It destroyed the recovery partition and the DVD and CD-ROM drives would not read and copy all the files during the upgrade process from the Windows XP Pro CD.

If you think you will need to recover the system, make the recovery disks
for the Pavilion. Your system is new and there should be a utility to do
this on the disk.

If you change the OS, the recovery system/partition may be of little value
anyway. (Unless you want to go back to the original.)

The drives would read 95% of the files but not all of them. Making it more bizarre, depending on the drive I used (DVD or CD),
it would have problems reading and copying different files from the CD. After working on this A LOT for 2 days and using a couple of different XP Pro CDs (in case the new one I bought from Office Depot was defective) and having the same problems, I finally got a install to complete with a clean install (why this time, I don't know...). However, a lot of the drivers
did not install correctly - the ethernet card, the sound card, etc. Surely I would think the generic XP drivers on the Microsoft XP Pro disk would support this HP hardware.

Ben's comment about drivers for newer hardware missing from the XP cd is
valid.
Bottom line is I've done many a Home to XP Pro upgrade and never run into such problems. I eventually concluded that the machine and the drives were defective and took it back to Circuit City. I couldn't imagine that a company like HP would produce a computer that couldn't be upgraded to XP Pro.

They probably do, just not a Pavilion. Driver support is one key issue. If
XP pro requires a different driver than XP home you are on your own.
I totally understand that HP will not give technical support for a
computer where the OS has been upgraded.

It seems you do expect to be able to do so which implies HP provided that
capability in their computers. Isn't that a form of supporting an OS
upgrade? (Just a nit. I would like to see better driver support, too.)

I don't care about that. I don't ever expect to call them for technical support and get anyone who can give me great
tech support anyway. And don't really care about the recovery partition if it's destroyed by the process. I expect to backup and set my own restore points anyway. I've seen some posts here that implies I'm not the only one who has had problems upgrading Pavilion machines to XP Pro. So I need some advice: 1. Has anyone done this without a hitch? Did you do a clean install or can
I use the XP Pro upgrade process from Windows so i can keep the installed applications? 2. Is there any other unusual concerns I should have about this process? I just can't believe that a person can buy a XP computer from anyone in
this day and time that can't be upgraded to XP Pro from the Microsoft CD. But after my last experience and from some scary posts on this newsgroup, I'm concerned about the process. Thanks. Sorry about the long post. Sid

Another option is to pull out the hard drive and do the clean install on a
new drive. Then, if there are any problems you can always go back. A new
hard drive costs less than the XP Pro CD.



Ben,
Newer Pavilions seem to come from Mexico, not Korea.

craigm

[Frank]

This whole situation with proprietary PC's is really sad.
I read in these forums problem after problem that is really
costly to the end user. This is not a matter of being cheap
it is a matter of being locked into something. What if your
HDD goes bad? You now have nothing, no software, no
data, nothing.

"Sid Joyner" <sid_joyner@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:101dpj46gvgqu42@corp.supernews.com... Hi Ben: Thanks for your information. It sounds logical and valuable. This computer is a HP Pavilion a350n. It's an Intel 2.8 GHZ machine
with Nvidia GeForce 440 MX graphics, etc. When I had problems last time,
it was with the VGA adapter, ethernet, and sound card drivers after trying
the XP Pro upgrade. But it appears that all the XP drivers are available
for download at
http://h20015.www2.hp.com/en/softwareList.jhtml?reg=&cc=us&prodId=hppavilion
371643&lc=en&plc=&softitem=Microsoft%20Windows%20XP&sw_lang=en&pagetyp
e=soft ware. If I download these to CD prior to performing the upgrade, I
would think I could reload them if they're not available on the XP Pro CD
during installation. My decision at this point is do I want to chance this at all. To
play it totally safe, I could put a third-party remote desktop application
(PC Anywhere?) and a third-party ftp server like Bulletproof FTP on the
machine. Also, I'm worried that if the Pro upgrade from Windows fails, the
only way to reinstall Pro would be a clean install, wiping out all the
pre-installed applications. I guess if that happened, I do have the recourse of
having HP send me the 7-CD recovery disks and restore it to a pristine
condition. As for your comments about the computer being "cheap", it's one of
the higher priced HP models. And I can't believe that Gateway or Dell
are any better. And between those three, you're talking about a huge part of
the total PC market share. I'd share your thoughts about "not having
sympathy" if he went and bought an off-brand, extremely cheap PC to save
money. But we're talking about a higher-end mainstream computer from the
computer manufacturer who sold more PCs than anyone in the world in Q4 2003
(even topping Dell). I wouldn't expect to have to buy an expensive niche
computer to have good support on this issue. Anyway, thanks for your help and response. Sid <ben_myers_spam_me_not @ charter.net (Ben Myers)> wrote in message news:4016cd52.692283@news.charter.net... Sid, As you might imagine, approach any XP Pro install on a Pavilion
with great caution. Why would an XP Pro install be problematical? 1. The Pavilion line is sold by HP as a consumer computer, not
intended for business use. And XP Pro equates with business use. These
computer companies all fail to understand the fine lines of dinstinction among home,
SOHO, small business, medium business, and corporate or enterprise business.
So they arbitrarily draw the line between corporate/enterprise and consumer/SOHO/small. What separates the two? Pavilions, like other consumer computers
are made cheaply, with cheap components, and the barest minimum of research
and development historically associated with design of computers. In
fact, the Pavilion line is still probably built by Daewoo of S. Korea or
perhaps some other contract electronics manufacturer. HP's contribution to the so-called design consists entirely the HP BIOS splash screen logo and the HP
colors and shapes of plastic on the outside of the case. Oh, yeah! The
price is cheap too. Well, people get what they pay for. 2. One other small part of the HP "R&D" effort is to pre-load the operating system software onto the hard drive including all drivers, some of
which are not normally found on the Windows XP Home CD. Drivers are not present
on a Windows OS CD for one of two reasons: They are completely oddball ones,
not used anywhere else. They are for chipsets designed AFTER the Windows
OS shipped, hence cannot possibly be included on the Windows OS CD. I suspect
that the chipsets on the A350N are not oddball. Neither HP nor anyone else
can afford to specify oddball chipsets for products any more, due to heavy price competition. By carefully scrutinizing the chips on the motherboard and all
add-in card, one can determine what drivers are needed and where to get them.
Hint: Not from the HP web site, which rarely has drivers to download for its
computers, except those with the Compaq brand. That's what you would have to do if
you wanted to install XP Pro correctly on the system. If any of this sounds like a defense of HP's policies and
practices, the reader is sorely mistaken. But... BUYER BEWARE. Unfortunately, niether
HP nor any other name brand manufacturer tells you these things before you
buy, so it is hard to beware, isn't it? Nevertheless, buying a computer on the
cheap is bound to lead to some disappointment somewhere along the way. Why
didn't your friend spend a few bucks more to buy a decent computer? Why? Because he
is probably like all the other computer buyers, who flock like lemmings to
supposed bargains. And you know what happens to lemmings. So that's an explanation which would be corroborated by HP if
someone were allowed to talk. I am not sympathetic to either HP or your
friend. ... Ben Myers On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 12:12:08 -0800, "Sid Joyner"
<sid_joyner@hotmail.com> wrote:Hi All:I would appreciate some advice.A friend of mine just recently purchased a HP Pavilion a350n from
Amazonwhich is pre-loaded with HP's OEM version of XP Home. My friend
would likefor me to set it up and would like the capabilities of XP Pro;
e.g., abilityfor me to remote desktop to his computer for occasional
maintenance,possibly running IIS services such as a web server or ftp server.I am really concerned about this upgrade. I tried a similar
upgrade to a HPPavilion computer a few weeks ago with XP Home and the upgrade
processcrashed. It destroyed the recovery partition and the DVD and
CD-ROM driveswould not read and copy all the files during the upgrade process
from theWindows XP Pro CD. The drives would read 95% of the files but not
all ofthem. Making it more bizarre, depending on the drive I used (DVD
or CD), itwould have problems reading and copying different files from the
CD.After working on this A LOT for 2 days and using a couple of
different XPPro CDs (in case the new one I bought from Office Depot was
defective) andhaving the same problems, I finally got a install to complete
with a cleaninstall (why this time, I don't know...). However, a lot of the
drivers didnot install correctly - the ethernet card, the sound card, etc.
Surely Iwould think the generic XP drivers on the Microsoft XP Pro disk
wouldsupport this HP hardware.Bottom line is I've done many a Home to XP Pro upgrade and never
run intosuch problems. I eventually concluded that the machine and the
drives weredefective and took it back to Circuit City. I couldn't imagine
that acompany like HP would produce a computer that couldn't be
upgraded to XPPro.I totally understand that HP will not give technical support for
a computerwhere the OS has been upgraded. I don't care about that. I don't
ever expectto call them for technical support and get anyone who can give me
great techsupport anyway. And don't really care about the recovery
partition if it'sdestroyed by the process. I expect to backup and set my own
restore pointsanyway.I've seen some posts here that implies I'm not the only one who
has hadproblems upgrading Pavilion machines to XP Pro. So I need some
advice:1. Has anyone done this without a hitch? Did you do a clean
install or can Iuse the XP Pro upgrade process from Windows so i can keep the
installedapplications?2. Is there any other unusual concerns I should have about this
process?I just can't believe that a person can buy a XP computer from
anyone in thisday and time that can't be upgraded to XP Pro from the Microsoft
CD. Butafter my last experience and from some scary posts on this
newsgroup, I'mconcerned about the process.Thanks. Sorry about the long post.Sid

[Ben Myers]

It's the combination of proprietary and cheaply built that costs the consumer in
the long run. Cheap because HP won't include the Windows XP Home restore CD in
the box with the system, like (Harrumph!) Dell does. Cheap and proprietary
because HP squeezes everything into tight spaces inside the computer, like a
slick expensive sports car. Maintenance costs are the same as an expensive
sports car, too, 'cause you pay a premium for one of the HP power supplies with
unusual shape and size and INSUFFICIENT wattage. Cheap, because the power
supply is underpowered, making it risky to add anything to the inside the
chassis, even something so simple as an add-in card or a stick of memory.
Cheap, because the power supply is cheaply made with low quality standards,
leading to more frequent burnouts of power supplies. Proprietary, because the
damned chassis is so hard to disassemble. Ever try to upgrade the memory in a
Pavilion where the DIMM sockets are located beneath the power supply? Ugh! The
add-in memory doesn't cost much, but I have to charge my clients for the
ridiculously long time it takes to do a careful memory upgrade.

This summarizes my experiences providing service, repairs, and upgrades for all
manner of computers, HP and other brands... Ben Myers

On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 23:09:35 -0500, "Frank" <bbunny@bqik.net> wrote:
This whole situation with proprietary PC's is really sad.I read in these forums problem after problem that is reallycostly to the end user. This is not a matter of being cheapit is a matter of being locked into something. What if yourHDD goes bad? You now have nothing, no software, nodata, nothing."Sid Joyner" <sid_joyner@hotmail.com> wrote in messagenews:101dpj46gvgqu42@corp.supernews.com... Hi Ben: Thanks for your information. It sounds logical and valuable. This computer is a HP Pavilion a350n. It's an Intel 2.8 GHZ machinewith Nvidia GeForce 440 MX graphics, etc. When I had problems last time,it was with the VGA adapter, ethernet, and sound card drivers after tryingthe XP Pro upgrade. But it appears that all the XP drivers are availablefor download athttp://h20015.www2.hp.com/en/softwareList.jhtml?reg=&cc=us&prodId=hppavilion371643&lc=en&plc=&softitem=Microsoft%20Windows%20XP&sw_lang=en&pagetype=soft ware. If I download these to CD prior to performing the upgrade, Iwould think I could reload them if they're not available on the XP Pro CDduring installation. My decision at this point is do I want to chance this at all. Toplay it totally safe, I could put a third-party remote desktop application(PC Anywhere?) and a third-party ftp server like Bulletproof FTP on themachine. Also, I'm worried that if the Pro upgrade from Windows fails, theonly way to reinstall Pro would be a clean install, wiping out all thepre-installed applications. I guess if that happened, I do have the recourse ofhaving HP send me the 7-CD recovery disks and restore it to a pristinecondition. As for your comments about the computer being "cheap", it's one ofthe higher priced HP models. And I can't believe that Gateway or Dellare any better. And between those three, you're talking about a huge part ofthe total PC market share. I'd share your thoughts about "not havingsympathy" if he went and bought an off-brand, extremely cheap PC to savemoney. But we're talking about a higher-end mainstream computer from thecomputer manufacturer who sold more PCs than anyone in the world in Q4 2003(even topping Dell). I wouldn't expect to have to buy an expensive nichecomputer to have good support on this issue. Anyway, thanks for your help and response. Sid <ben_myers_spam_me_not @ charter.net (Ben Myers)> wrote in message news:4016cd52.692283@news.charter.net... Sid, As you might imagine, approach any XP Pro install on a Pavilionwith great caution. Why would an XP Pro install be problematical? 1. The Pavilion line is sold by HP as a consumer computer, notintended for business use. And XP Pro equates with business use. Thesecomputer companies all fail to understand the fine lines of dinstinction among home,SOHO, small business, medium business, and corporate or enterprise business.So they arbitrarily draw the line between corporate/enterprise and consumer/SOHO/small. What separates the two? Pavilions, like other consumer computersare made cheaply, with cheap components, and the barest minimum of researchand development historically associated with design of computers. Infact, the Pavilion line is still probably built by Daewoo of S. Korea orperhaps some other contract electronics manufacturer. HP's contribution to the so-called design consists entirely the HP BIOS splash screen logo and the HPcolors and shapes of plastic on the outside of the case. Oh, yeah! Theprice is cheap too. Well, people get what they pay for. 2. One other small part of the HP "R&D" effort is to pre-load the operating system software onto the hard drive including all drivers, some ofwhich are not normally found on the Windows XP Home CD. Drivers are not presenton a Windows OS CD for one of two reasons: They are completely oddball ones,not used anywhere else. They are for chipsets designed AFTER the WindowsOS shipped, hence cannot possibly be included on the Windows OS CD. I suspectthat the chipsets on the A350N are not oddball. Neither HP nor anyone elsecan afford to specify oddball chipsets for products any more, due to heavy price competition. By carefully scrutinizing the chips on the motherboard and alladd-in card, one can determine what drivers are needed and where to get them.Hint: Not from the HP web site, which rarely has drivers to download for itscomputers, except those with the Compaq brand. That's what you would have to do ifyou wanted to install XP Pro correctly on the system. If any of this sounds like a defense of HP's policies andpractices, the reader is sorely mistaken. But... BUYER BEWARE. Unfortunately, nietherHP nor any other name brand manufacturer tells you these things before youbuy, so it is hard to beware, isn't it? Nevertheless, buying a computer on thecheap is bound to lead to some disappointment somewhere along the way. Whydidn't your friend spend a few bucks more to buy a decent computer? Why? Because heis probably like all the other computer buyers, who flock like lemmings tosupposed bargains. And you know what happens to lemmings. So that's an explanation which would be corroborated by HP ifsomeone were allowed to talk. I am not sympathetic to either HP or yourfriend. ... Ben Myers On Tue, 27 Jan 2004 12:12:08 -0800, "Sid Joyner"<sid_joyner@hotmail.com> wrote: >Hi All: > >I would appreciate some advice. > >A friend of mine just recently purchased a HP Pavilion a350n fromAmazon >which is pre-loaded with HP's OEM version of XP Home. My friendwould like >for me to set it up and would like the capabilities of XP Pro;e.g., ability >for me to remote desktop to his computer for occasionalmaintenance, >possibly running IIS services such as a web server or ftp server. > >I am really concerned about this upgrade. I tried a similarupgrade to a HP >Pavilion computer a few weeks ago with XP Home and the upgradeprocess >crashed. It destroyed the recovery partition and the DVD andCD-ROM drives >would not read and copy all the files during the upgrade processfrom the >Windows XP Pro CD. The drives would read 95% of the files but notall of >them. Making it more bizarre, depending on the drive I used (DVDor CD), it >would have problems reading and copying different files from theCD. > >After working on this A LOT for 2 days and using a couple ofdifferent XP >Pro CDs (in case the new one I bought from Office Depot wasdefective) and >having the same problems, I finally got a install to completewith a clean >install (why this time, I don't know...). However, a lot of thedrivers did >not install correctly - the ethernet card, the sound card, etc.Surely I >would think the generic XP drivers on the Microsoft XP Pro diskwould >support this HP hardware. > >Bottom line is I've done many a Home to XP Pro upgrade and neverrun into >such problems. I eventually concluded that the machine and thedrives were >defective and took it back to Circuit City. I couldn't imaginethat a >company like HP would produce a computer that couldn't beupgraded to XP >Pro. > >I totally understand that HP will not give technical support fora computer >where the OS has been upgraded. I don't care about that. I don'tever expect >to call them for technical support and get anyone who can give megreat tech >support anyway. And don't really care about the recoverypartition if it's >destroyed by the process. I expect to backup and set my ownrestore points >anyway. > >I've seen some posts here that implies I'm not the only one whohas had >problems upgrading Pavilion machines to XP Pro. So I need someadvice: > >1. Has anyone done this without a hitch? Did you do a cleaninstall or can I >use the XP Pro upgrade process from Windows so i can keep theinstalled >applications? > >2. Is there any other unusual concerns I should have about thisprocess? > >I just can't believe that a person can buy a XP computer fromanyone in this >day and time that can't be upgraded to XP Pro from the MicrosoftCD. But >after my last experience and from some scary posts on thisnewsgroup, I'm >concerned about the process. > >Thanks. Sorry about the long post. > >Sid > >

[Sid Joyner]

Hi All:

Just to finish up this thread I started and report back on the final
verdict. It wasn't good...

I decided to upgrade the XP Home on the HP Pavilion a350n to XP Pro. I used
the Upgrade (recommended) process instead of the clean install. (I was
trying to salvage the apps that came pre-installed on the box.) As soon as
the upgrade process went to reboot for the first time to copy the
installation files to the disk (very early in the process), upon reboot, I
get the blue screen of death - ProcessInitializationFailed. It was
impossible to get by this screen upon rebooting without doing a clean
install and overwriting the Windows installation on disk. (I didn't FDISK
the thing, although I probably should have.)

I then proceeded to install XP Pro, reinstall the drivers from the HP
Customer Care web site I had diligently downloaded in case of this disaster,
updated the OS with the XP service packs and other Windows updates, and now
I have a fairly clean, fast installation to build upon. I even found the
original drivers and some other pre-installed software in a hidden folder on
the C: drive (C:\HP). You'll be seeing some further posts from me requesting
some advice on getting it where I want it; e.g., reallocating the ~6 GB
recovery partition to C:, recovering the memory card reader icons in My
Computer (hope I can do that), etc.

Bottom line: the upgrade from XP Home to XP Pro on the HP Pavilion totally
sucked. But it's a fairly fast machine and it didn't take that long
rebuilding it. It would have probably taken me that long to go through all
the crap trial softwares and games installed that they put on the system to
start with.

Thanks for everyone's help.

Sid

"Sid Joyner" <sid_joyner@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:101dhhd3b9bcm4c@corp.supernews.com... Hi All: I would appreciate some advice. A friend of mine just recently purchased a HP Pavilion a350n from Amazon which is pre-loaded with HP's OEM version of XP Home. My friend would like for me to set it up and would like the capabilities of XP Pro; e.g.,
ability for me to remote desktop to his computer for occasional maintenance, possibly running IIS services such as a web server or ftp server. I am really concerned about this upgrade. I tried a similar upgrade to a
HP Pavilion computer a few weeks ago with XP Home and the upgrade process crashed. It destroyed the recovery partition and the DVD and CD-ROM drives would not read and copy all the files during the upgrade process from the Windows XP Pro CD. The drives would read 95% of the files but not all of them. Making it more bizarre, depending on the drive I used (DVD or CD),
it would have problems reading and copying different files from the CD. After working on this A LOT for 2 days and using a couple of different XP Pro CDs (in case the new one I bought from Office Depot was defective) and having the same problems, I finally got a install to complete with a clean install (why this time, I don't know...). However, a lot of the drivers
did not install correctly - the ethernet card, the sound card, etc. Surely I would think the generic XP drivers on the Microsoft XP Pro disk would support this HP hardware. Bottom line is I've done many a Home to XP Pro upgrade and never run into such problems. I eventually concluded that the machine and the drives were defective and took it back to Circuit City. I couldn't imagine that a company like HP would produce a computer that couldn't be upgraded to XP Pro. I totally understand that HP will not give technical support for a
computer where the OS has been upgraded. I don't care about that. I don't ever
expect to call them for technical support and get anyone who can give me great
tech support anyway. And don't really care about the recovery partition if it's destroyed by the process. I expect to backup and set my own restore points anyway. I've seen some posts here that implies I'm not the only one who has had problems upgrading Pavilion machines to XP Pro. So I need some advice: 1. Has anyone done this without a hitch? Did you do a clean install or can
I use the XP Pro upgrade process from Windows so i can keep the installed applications? 2. Is there any other unusual concerns I should have about this process? I just can't believe that a person can buy a XP computer from anyone in
this day and time that can't be upgraded to XP Pro from the Microsoft CD. But after my last experience and from some scary posts on this newsgroup, I'm concerned about the process. Thanks. Sorry about the long post. Sid

[Dave]

I 've had a HP Pavilion 541C for about a year and a half. I got so fed
up with their OS, recovery partition and incompatibilites that I decided to
start from scratch. I added a second hard drive, did a clean install of XP
Home (retail not HP) to it and migrated my data from the old drive to the
new one. Then I wiped out the original drive and am using it to store
backups and data. I did some research and found that the motherboard was an
MSI board (MS-6367) with Nvidia onboard video and sound. I was able to get
drivers that worked from Nvidia and get the new install running fine without
any of the outdated HP drivers. In fact, it's running as good as any OS
ever has for me. I haven't had any problems with the power supply when
adding hardware. I added the second hard drive and a DVD-RW.


"Sid Joyner" <sid_joyner@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:101flmbtjm4145@corp.supernews.com... Hi All: Just to finish up this thread I started and report back on the final verdict. It wasn't good... I decided to upgrade the XP Home on the HP Pavilion a350n to XP Pro. I
used the Upgrade (recommended) process instead of the clean install. (I was trying to salvage the apps that came pre-installed on the box.) As soon as the upgrade process went to reboot for the first time to copy the installation files to the disk (very early in the process), upon reboot, I get the blue screen of death - ProcessInitializationFailed. It was impossible to get by this screen upon rebooting without doing a clean install and overwriting the Windows installation on disk. (I didn't FDISK the thing, although I probably should have.) I then proceeded to install XP Pro, reinstall the drivers from the HP Customer Care web site I had diligently downloaded in case of this
disaster, updated the OS with the XP service packs and other Windows updates, and
now I have a fairly clean, fast installation to build upon. I even found the original drivers and some other pre-installed software in a hidden folder
on the C: drive (C:\HP). You'll be seeing some further posts from me
requesting some advice on getting it where I want it; e.g., reallocating the ~6 GB recovery partition to C:, recovering the memory card reader icons in My Computer (hope I can do that), etc. Bottom line: the upgrade from XP Home to XP Pro on the HP Pavilion totally sucked. But it's a fairly fast machine and it didn't take that long rebuilding it. It would have probably taken me that long to go through all the crap trial softwares and games installed that they put on the system
to start with. Thanks for everyone's help. Sid "Sid Joyner" <sid_joyner@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:101dhhd3b9bcm4c@corp.supernews.com... Hi All: I would appreciate some advice. A friend of mine just recently purchased a HP Pavilion a350n from Amazon which is pre-loaded with HP's OEM version of XP Home. My friend would
like for me to set it up and would like the capabilities of XP Pro; e.g., ability for me to remote desktop to his computer for occasional maintenance, possibly running IIS services such as a web server or ftp server. I am really concerned about this upgrade. I tried a similar upgrade to a HP Pavilion computer a few weeks ago with XP Home and the upgrade process crashed. It destroyed the recovery partition and the DVD and CD-ROM
drives would not read and copy all the files during the upgrade process from
the Windows XP Pro CD. The drives would read 95% of the files but not all of them. Making it more bizarre, depending on the drive I used (DVD or CD), it would have problems reading and copying different files from the CD. After working on this A LOT for 2 days and using a couple of different
XP Pro CDs (in case the new one I bought from Office Depot was defective)
and having the same problems, I finally got a install to complete with a
clean install (why this time, I don't know...). However, a lot of the drivers did not install correctly - the ethernet card, the sound card, etc. Surely
I would think the generic XP drivers on the Microsoft XP Pro disk would support this HP hardware. Bottom line is I've done many a Home to XP Pro upgrade and never run
into such problems. I eventually concluded that the machine and the drives
were defective and took it back to Circuit City. I couldn't imagine that a company like HP would produce a computer that couldn't be upgraded to XP Pro. I totally understand that HP will not give technical support for a computer where the OS has been upgraded. I don't care about that. I don't ever expect to call them for technical support and get anyone who can give me great tech support anyway. And don't really care about the recovery partition if
it's destroyed by the process. I expect to backup and set my own restore
points anyway. I've seen some posts here that implies I'm not the only one who has had problems upgrading Pavilion machines to XP Pro. So I need some advice: 1. Has anyone done this without a hitch? Did you do a clean install or
can I use the XP Pro upgrade process from Windows so i can keep the installed applications? 2. Is there any other unusual concerns I should have about this process? I just can't believe that a person can buy a XP computer from anyone in this day and time that can't be upgraded to XP Pro from the Microsoft CD. But after my last experience and from some scary posts on this newsgroup,
I'm concerned about the process. Thanks. Sorry about the long post. Sid

[notreallyme]

Let's see: I have a new HP that came installed with XP Home. I copied the
7 disks as supported onto CD, I even ordered the 7 disks at no charge. I
upgraded the OS to XP Pro with no problems. I opened the case and found
plenty of room for upgrades. I added a 2nd hard drive, a DVD drive, added
more memory without having to ask "what kind?", installed another video card
and have not had a problem. Cheap parts? I don't think so. It came with a
WD hard drive, and an ASUS board sold at most computer parts stores.
Quiet? You bet! Oh yeah! I repair computers. They are all crap off the
shelf at those prices. Dell and Sony have the same problems HP/Compaq have
had. Biggest problem: the owner.

[Ben Myers]

1. Quality is in the eye of the beholder.
2. Agreed. The problem is often the owner. Buying on the cheap, expecting a
Mercedes at junk car prices... Ben

On Wed, 28 Jan 2004 17:41:02 GMT, "notreallyme" <notreallyme@lousygolf.com>
wrote:
Let's see: I have a new HP that came installed with XP Home. I copied the7 disks as supported onto CD, I even ordered the 7 disks at no charge. Iupgraded the OS to XP Pro with no problems. I opened the case and foundplenty of room for upgrades. I added a 2nd hard drive, a DVD drive, addedmore memory without having to ask "what kind?", installed another video cardand have not had a problem. Cheap parts? I don't think so. It came with aWD hard drive, and an ASUS board sold at most computer parts stores.Quiet? You bet! Oh yeah! I repair computers. They are all crap off theshelf at those prices. Dell and Sony have the same problems HP/Compaq havehad. Biggest problem: the owner.