Windows Genuine Advantage Suckage

My latest tale of Microsoft woe began in late summer/early fall of 2008 with the premature death of my beloved Dell XPS gaming computer.

At first, I blamed an aborted attempt to download Microsoft's Windows XP SP3. But based on the results of a detailed post-mortem by my awesome friend Logtar, The Borg Collective appears to be blameless. I just let the ventilation system get clogged up and I fried the motherboard through sheer lack of basic maintenance.

But while I had direct access to the highest levels of Microsoft technical support, I took advantage of it. I got nightly calls from India from very knowledgeable techs who spent HOURS on the phone showering me with curry-scented personal attention.

One of the attempts they made to fix the problem was to send me a new Windows XP Professional installation disk which includes Service Pack 2, since I couldn't find my disks.

Bottom line, long story short, we never revived my XPS and through an act of unbelievable kindness (scratch that..if you know these people, the kindness is TOTALLY believable. Awesome peeps!), I now have a new/used computer. When we were setting it up, we used the Windows XP Professional disks that MS sent me.

Now, I'm starting to get annoying messages from Windows Genuine Advantage wanting me to verify that I have a legitimate copy of Windows. I've been ignoring the annoying messages because although I have the product key, the disk itself has a label that says "UNLICENSED SOFTWARE - Illegal without separate license from Microsoft".

I don't know what that means. I can't believe Microsoft would send me an illegal copy of their own software.

I've been ignoring them long enough that I can no longer play any videos that require Windows Media Player 11 because Microsoft is blocking it. This is severely, I repeat SEVERELY limiting my access to The Good Porn.

Now, I have recently discovered my original Dell XPS supplied Windows XPS Re installation disk, still in it's shrink wrap.

So here is my question to you, my loyal reader.

Do I try to go through the Genuine Windows Advantage validation using the Windows XP Professional CD that Microsoft sent me during my "servicing" that is currently installed on my new/used Dell Optiplex?

Or do I cut open the shrink wrap and install my Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 from the old Dell XPS over the top of the older Windows XP Professional from 2002 supplied by Microsoft?

Which path will present the least pain and the most porn?

This is very important.

Discuss.