Changing operating system

[pickers]

I have made a complete image backup of my C drive on an external drive and now find I have to wipe my C drive and load XP home. The image backup was done under XP Professional. I know that I can select individual folders using Acronis to reinstall selected folders rather than reloading the complete image? I will have to reload the Acronis software I assume manually which I hope will be able to recognize my image on my external drive? To do a complete image recovery from my external hard disk I assume is pointless as it will contain the old XP Pro system files etc. Can anybody give me some advice. If say, I reload the folder for Splinter Cell (a game I use) will it reinstall the program properly. I am really trying to avoid have to go through the hack of manually reloading all my program software.
Cheers
Pickers

[seekforever]

Originally Posted by pickers

I have made a complete image backup of my C drive on an external drive and now find I have to wipe my C drive and load XP home. The image backup was done under XP Professional. I know that I can select individual folders using Acronis to reinstall selected folders rather than reloading the complete image? I will have to reload the Acronis software I assume manually which I hope will be able to recognize my image on my external drive? To do a complete image recovery from my external hard disk I assume is pointless as it will contain the old XP Pro system files etc. Can anybody give me some advice. If say, I reload the folder for Splinter Cell (a game I use) will it reinstall the program properly. I am really trying to avoid have to go through the hack of manually reloading all my program software.
Cheers
Pickers

It won't work; it is no different than trying to install a program on a computer by copying over the files which does nothing for the registry entries. You need to run the install program.

Will running the XP Home install do a "downgrade" of the pro installation and leave your apps intact? I just don't know.

Edit: After looking at several support sites on the net it seems that you cannot downgrade from Pro to Home.