Hello im having a bit of a problem here.. Here's the deal hopefully someone can shed some light on the subject...

Three years ago i bought a dell system.. since them the system has crashed and i built myself a custom system throwing out all the cd's from dell except the windows xp home installation cd.. I install windows xp on the new computer (this one).. So i try and enter the product key for this disk WHICH is a valid cd key given to me by dell and the authorization process is telling me its invalid.. I call dell and they offer no support because its not a dell computer and they cant support microsofts software and i call microsoft and this guy can barley speak english and is of no help basically telling me that i have to buy a new copy of windows xp inorder to activate.. Now why should i have to buy a new copy of windows xp if i allready have one which i obtained from buying the dell system?

ive been doing some internet searching and i read an article saying that when u activate windows it takes a configuration of your system and stores it on their server.. Now maybe thats why its telling me the CD key is invalid.. it thinks the dell system is still in use (Because i did activate that one) but its not.. its in the garbage dump somewhere, where it belongs.. Is there a way to reset the config that microsoft has on file so i can re-register this one? so now back to my problem.. How am i supposed to activate this copy of windows with my old cd key .. i really dont see myself buying another copy of windows xp just for the damn cd key.. and i'd rather not try one of those keygens since i actually do have a valid key for my old system

So.. anyone have any ideas?