Can retail XP Home SP2 be activated in a VM?

I have a new in box genuine XP Home retail edition that has never been activated and I would like to activate inside a vmware workstation virtual machine.

first question: is this possible without a hitch?

second question: can I boot this .vdmk vm in workstation on a different system/hardware as is without extra usboot or other tweaks and without having to re-activate due to hardware changes?


thanks