Thanks for everyone's help. I phoned MS about the issue. A nice tech told me that I could resolve the situation by buying an additional license key for the cost of the download, since I already owned and paid for the disk version. He asked if I would
like to be transferred to the sales department. I said yes.
The sales department told me that separate license keys were not for sale at any price. I referred them back to the tech department. I was transferred back and forth a few times and got a supervisor involved too.
The final word was that separate licenses were not being sold at that time, tough luck.
I solved the problem by throwing money at it.
Even though my PC was qualified for the $39 download, it no longer was because the abortive install from the disk wiped out whatever was needed to verify the upgrade price.
So I threw the extra money at the problem and paid $69 for a $39 dollar install.
I got some more misinformation about how to fix the situation easily from the locked version the disk installed on the machine.
Well, Windows 8 Pro is installed properly and works fine.
I don't have any qualms about paying the asking price for a product. I think the $39 upgrade was an epic fail on Microsoft's part though. I don't believe that I should have been overcharged for the qualifying PC.
Imagine someone might think that if they paid extra for the disk in the price of the first qualifying machine upgrade, that they could use it and buy the license key for a second QUALIFYING installation.
Yes I could have taken the time to reinstall the original operating system, searched all over the place and maybe found a driver that would work with the network card in the PC, gotten on the Internet and hoped for the best downloading the $39 dollar install.
After talking to tech support though, in the event I may have had some problems with the install, I had very little confidence I would have gotten the help I needed.
I do understand that it was a launch of a new operating system. I don't understand why the support and decision making to go the extra step to find a good solution wasn't there.
So no, there wasn't a number available to call to buy a second key at any price. You need to do some kind of complete install, most likely the download option. I recommend you just throw money at the problem. That works.
Again, I want to thank the people who responded here.
