Hi John--
Thats the whole point Microsoft protection against pirate copys, so no you cant really. BUT..
I have no reports of XP not working and in my company we all use XP Office and sell the product, never a complaint, and we dont register or activate on line, i do not have Web access on my desk top.
You can not run 2000 and XP the same was as 95+97 and 2000 could the install removes older versions, even if you tinker the load allocations it still removes them, if you go XP and load 97 after XP crashes, dont know of any fix, guess as i always say stay legal.
Sorry mate
HTH
Jack