you think you have. The XP "Gold" version appears to be some early release to PC makers and not the retail version that eventually came out. For your information, I do have a retail copy of XP pro Upgrade. It's clearly marked on the disk. It also mentions SP1, version 2002. The volume label is X1APCCP_EN. I also have the 3-way folded packaging with the PID code on an orange sticker. Mine is real and yours may be not. The upgrade version was intended to allow for owners of Win98 SE, ME or XP Home, as I recall. It could do an in place upgrade or a clean installation. A clean installation could be done by presenting a qualifying CD during the process...a practice not allowed with Win7 upgrade. In any event, I do wonder if your copy wasn't meant for OEMs and not end users. As such, OEM and retail disks don't always play nice together.
I do wonder if your version is actually RTM because, if so, it's not the official XP retail upgrade for end users.
Here is a compilation of posts from another forum
regarding my problem:
---------------------------------------------------------------
I'm trying to upgrade an OEM Windows XP Home Sp3
system to Windows XP Pro.(There are a couple of
features in Pro that are not available in Home that I now
need: (1) Offline Files and (2) a freely available add-on to
Onenote 2007,Top2onenote, requires Pro).I do not want
a clean install but an upgrade. I purchased a Windows
XP Pro upgrade CD over Ebay which turned out to be
Windows XP Pro Gold (v2002).I'm sure its genuine for
the following reasons:
It was listed as an upgrade, but the CD is not
labeled "Upgrade".
It looks very genuine with all the Microsoft holography.
It came in the standard Windows XP packaging
(minus the box), and it was sealed.
The volume label for the CD is WXPFPP_EN. From
the Internet, that is Windows XP Pro RTM (Gold)
Retail !!!!
Here are the things I tried initially.
1) I tried to upgrade to Pro from the purchased CD. It
immediately refused to upgrade stating the upgrade OS
(Pro) was older than the installed OS (Home)..
2) I read up on slipstreaming. Slipstreaming allows one
to incorporate a service pack with an earlier version of an
OS. I created an image of a slipstreamed upgrade XP
Pro SP3 CD using Nlite (and later Autostreamer, but it
made no difference) from the purchased CD and a file
containing SP3.
After burning the CD and starting the upgrade
installation (from Windows), the upgrade process
proceeds through "Collecting Information",
"Dynamic Update", and "Preparing Installation" with
no problems. My machine rebooted and returned to
"Preparing Installation". A progress bar titled "Progress"
quickly filled to about 90% and the system hung
at that point for about 15 minutes.
Next, I received the following error:
Setup cannot set the required Windows XP configuration
information. This indicates an internal setup error.
This is where I'm stuck. I had to quit Setup at this point.
My hard drive was unbootable and I had to restore a backup.
3) Just for the heck of it, I formatted my hard disk and
reinstalled my original OEM XP Home SP3 OS (clean,
no user files). I immediately used my slipstreamed XP
Pro CD to attempt an upgrade to XP Pro and IT
WORKED!!! I need to discover why the clean XP Home
OS successfully upgraded to XP Pro but my preexisting
(with user files,drivers, etc.) XP Home OS will not
upgrade successfully to XP Pro.
-------------------------------------------------------------
From another post:
Again, today I installed a fresh copy of OEM Windows XP
Home Sp3. I followed that with an installation of all
essential and add-on drivers (essentially all my original
version drivers). Next, I configured a network connection
and firewall. With this setup, I ran the XP Pro
slipstreamed SP3 CD. The upgrade to XP Pro was
successful (even though the upgrade did not configure
my graphics card correctly). I guess my current problem
is either the registry,the WINDOWS folder, or some user
file or setting.
---------------------------------------------------------------
From another post:
I've made a file and folder backup of the C:\Windows folder on my preexisting system (OEM XP Home Sp3).
I've also made a separate backup of the "System State"
on my preexisting system.These are in addition to my full
image backup of the preexisting system from a month
ago.
I've made an image backup of my minimal system
(Fresh OEM XP Home SP3 with all original drivers
installed plus a configured network connection, and a
configured firewall). This system will upgrade
successfully to XP Pro with the slipstreamed XP Pro
SP3 CD.
Experiment 1:
I restored my minimal system. I then restored the C:/Windows folder and the System State from the
preexisting system backup. A bootup was successful
(with a minor irritant). I had to activate Windows.
Next, I tried the upgrade with the slipstreamed XP Pro. It
paused at the same place during the upgrade and gave
the same error as before:
Setup cannot set the required Windows XP configuration
information.This indicates an internal setup error.
Experiment 2:
I restored my minimal system. I then restored only the
System State from the preexisting system backup. After
bootup I was asked to activate Windows, but answering
yes to the question would log me off the system. I could
not get logged in to try the XP Pro upgrade.
Experiment 3:
I restored my minimal system. I then restored only the
C:/Windows folder from the preexisting system backup.
Again, as in Experiment 1, the upgrade failed at the
same point with the same error message.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Before Experiment 3, I hoped that Experiment 3 would
succeed so I could conclude I had a registry problem. I'm
not so sure now. I don't know what to try next. Taking the
minimal system and reinstalling my user files is not an
option as my hard disk has over 200GB ofprograms!!! If I
restore all the files and folders from my preexisting
backup I would still have to restore a reliable System State (read registry).
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Sorry for the length! If anyone has any ideas I'd appreciate replies.
Thanks,

Chowhound
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