Originally Posted by CSflim

Something like this happened to me when I reinstalled after an upgrade. I couldn't activate XP over the net. So I tried to activate over the phone, and after failing the automated activation I got transferred to a person. I just told the guy that I was reinstalling after an upgrade. He then asked me how many machines I have this copy of XP installed on, and I told him (truthfully) that it was only on this one. He then gave me a working authorisation code.