I had XP Home on my system, which met with an untimely demise. I had a copy of XP Pro (not belonging to me), which I loaded to have a functional system, expecting to be able to get a (legal and brand new) copy of Home from a Microsoft employee friend. He nows says that he can't get XP any longer, that Microsoft is only letting him get Vista, which my system won't handle.

Sooooo... How do I (cheaply) get this turned into a legal copy? There are Home UPGRADE discs on ebay, but would that work with the Pro version I now have? I don't care if I have Pro or Home, I just want a legal, validated key, whatever! Help!

this info is incorrect, as a operating system can't meet a timely demise ,The cd maybe,but not the OS, all you need is a winxp home cd to load windows and use the key you have to activated it .

Welll.... Either way, I had no discs to use to restore the system that I had, and I had to put the Pro system on, and that still leaves me needing a validation key to make the system I now have legal, and I'm just trying to figure out the cheapest way to do that

don't buy from e-bay ,go to computer store and buy a legal copy .only way ,but if you have the key for your home edition ,just borrow a xp home disk from a friend and use it to load windows and use your home key ,you say it was a legal install ,so you must have had a key for it .they is no way to make your friends copy of xp pro legal ,unless you call Microsoft and buy a new key .