Will XP professional Academic version work on pre-installed xp home computer

I have just committed to purchase Windows XP Professional Upgrade with SP 2 (academic version) from someone on ebay. Im not sure if I made the right decision as I have found out from someone else that you need a retail version for the upgrade to work.

I currently have windows XP home which was pre-installed on my dell computer before I bought it. I think this may be an OEM although im not even sure what that means. Will the upgrade (academic version) even install on this computer?

I wanted XP professional as I am a student about to take a visual basic.net programming course that requires IIS.

If this version does not work which professional version should I purchase?

Thank you

 

i'm not sure why but i had xp pro i didn't like it i was going to put home on it. it told me i couldn't upgrade from pro to home. so i f'd up and did clean on top of pro. i just wasn't thinking or i would have kept both. so it's a home xp now. OEM was embed when you bought your comp. store bought is thought by some not to be as good. but if you need pro thats all you can do. i don't think a download would be for me if i'm paying i'd rather have the cd incase of problems.

 

what happened to the good old day's when you bought a pc you got the cd too.