I moved to Mexico and bought an e-machine. At home, I discovered the OS was XP starter (stripped down version of XP Home). I have a new copy of XP Home version 2002 which I've had sitting around for a couple of years. Tried to install it and got a message saying it was not allowed since the XP Home version was older than the Starter Edition which came with the computer. Can someone tell me a method of changing these OSs? Thanks

What you would want to do is to take the XP cd you have and integrate service pack 2 into it then you can do and upgrade or a fresh install with it. 1.First copy all the contents of the XP cd to a folder on your hard drive. For an example I will say D:\fresh xp 2.Go here and download the network install of sp2. For an example I will say D:\ 3.Go to start>run and type in D:\WindowsXP-KB835935-SP2-ENU.exe /integrate:D\fresh xp. Remember to leave a space between exe and /. It will extract the individual files to a temp location and integrate with the XP cd files you copied to your hard drive. 4.Go here and click the link to your burner software to burn the integrated files to a cd.

If you insert your XP CD in your drive, reboot your machine and when it says hit any key to boot from CD, do that and you should be able to install your version of XPHome. Make sure you delete the partition and make a new one so you have a fresh install. You can always upgrade to SP2 after your installation. Hopefully my advice will help you...Please post back with your results....thanks