Hi, Tom.
Perhaps you (or Hans) could use the "in-place upgrade", as described in this
KB article:
How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade (Reinstallation) of Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q315341
This is not intended as a time-saver for reinstalling WinXP itself. It will
take an hour or two to rerun Setup, and then another hour or two (after
getting your firewall and antivirus back in place) to visit Windows Update
to download and install SP1 (unless it's included in your WinXP CD-ROM) and
all the later fixes, including the one from last July that protects from the
Blaster worm. Better plan on half a day for the entire project. But, it
should preserve all your installed applications and data, cutting your
entire time to a half-day, rather than two days.
To deal with the Office part of your problem, uninstall Office before the
in-place upgrade, then install it fresh afterwards.
RC