DMoe,
At the time I posted that message I was erroneously thinking that one would have a choice of OSs when one contacted MS to take the Genuine Windows Offer. I was later informed by MS reps that the GWO was limited to replacing the edition of XP installed.
So, IOW, if you have a computer with a bogus installation of XP Pro, the only edition of XP that you could get on the GWO was XP Pro. If you had a bogus Home, then all you could get on the GWO was XP Home.
The MS reps said that they were considering making both editions of XP available for a given taker of the GWO, but so far I have not seen any information that would indicate that a decision has been reached.
If you have a laptop that has a Certificate of Authenticity (COA) affixed to it, there is an excellent chance that the laptop is still licensed to run the edition and/or version of Windows described on the COA. If the Windows on the COA is XP, then it's likely that the manufacturer will be able to sell you an inexpensive set of Recovery CDs, which would be the cheapest way to "get legal."