yikes .... coherence?

You hate SP2 because of the security features, so you disable them? Or you hate SP2 because you disable all the security features? Regardless, as a sysadmin and infosec enthusiast, I have to say it's better to install sp2 (and keep yourself patched) and just disable the warnings security center gives you than it is to run unpatched on any computer that can so much as touch the internet.

Anyway, quit reinstalling windows all the time for one thing. For another thing, you can probably get microsoft to either activate by phone, or to trade your current key in for a new one. Unless you were particularly blatant about things. But you'll have to call them up.

Or you could just drop the $90 or so on another copy of xp home from newegg and get it over with. As a community, we shouldn't be endorsing software piracy (for the obvious reasons). Or, if all else fails, you could switch to some flavor of linux and learn a thing or three about choices...