Reinstall XP and/or change the Product Key

[systempat]

Well I've stumbled into a bit of a mess here with trying to upgrade a system from XP home to Pro. First I'll give the question and then the story if You want to read it.
I need to reinstall XP pro or modify it to change the product key. Because I used a bad product key when installing it the first time last week (see story). It would save me a lot of time and effort to avoid doing a fresh install. Can somebody give me me a method to do this so I can enter the valid product key and get thru WGA validation from Msoft? I've done some research and some methods that involved doing a registry hack I believe don't work anymore since sp2 or sp3.

The story: I purchased a copy of Win XP pro for upgrading my 2nd system for a software development project. Since I am currently working part-time only I need to stretch every dollar. So I bought it on Ebay, there are a lot of copies of XP floating around. Don't laugh. Copy was new as in shrink-wrap, never opened. Looked good. It was also a counterfeit. It installed fine. Activated fine once I reinstalled the chipset drivers. Updated to SP3 fine with the batch SP3 update that I had downloaded before. Then I went online for Windows Update and it failed validation. The message said the product key was never issued from Msoft. Oh, NO! Contacted the Ebay seller and he apologized and refunded my purchase. So it seems he was fooled too. Probably. Be Warned it looked good except for a couple of small details. Site I was directed to after the failed validation www.microsoft.com/piracy/howtotell was interesting. They have photos of the COA labels and the XP disks and point out the copy protection features. Cranked out in some Asian factory probably.
So now I've bought another copy of Pro which is now in the mail.From Ebay again. Don't laugh. Because of time pressures I have installed quite a few programs and updates in the current install. Like .NET framework, SQL server database, Office, etc. If I can save that install it would really help. If I can just enter the new product key, I think all would be a go. I think the software was OK (not that hard to copy) but the product key was the problem.

[glc]

http://www.winkeyfinder.com/remosito...r-1.73-rc2.php

You used to be able to change the key with Magical Jellybean, but that's been removed in the latest version.

[systempat]

One other concern. There seem to be some issues of which version of XP disk that one has. Seems to be different flavors of licenses. Like a Retail disk, a Corporate Volume License, an OEM disk (the generic kind like you get when buying hardware online) and the customized OEM builds like a Dell OEM or Compaq.
Mine would be a generic OEM key. The new one should be too.
I will be checking out the winkeyfinder once I have the new licensed copy in hand. It sounds very good.

[glc]

If that doesn't work, just do a repair reinstall, it will ask you for your key. Procedure for a repair reinstall is in the Tips and Tricks forum.