Laptop Screwop

Go to this website and make sure that the laptop meets the minimum requirements that microsoft has stated.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/TechNet/prodtechnol/winxppro/reskit/prka_fea_ppnm.asp

As far as the items in startup that show up as icons in the lower right hand corner of the screen when the machine is on, most times you can right click on the little icon, and choose preferences, or options, or something like that and go in and disable these items individually on startup. Some of these startup programs are a little tricky though and the software author does not want you to be able to figure out how to disable it, but check out the internet on some the the tough ones if there are any, and see what someone else has done, don't know specifically which programs you have running, so I can only offer a little help.
Hope this helps.

Adding to Info man's great answer, Windows XP comes with the old MSCONFIG program like Windows 98 did. You can go to Start, Run, and type in MSCONFIG. Go to the Startup tab to see what's running at start up. Uncheck boxes for things like Real Player, AOL, MS Find Fast, MS Office, and the like. Make sure not to remove any essential or desired programs such as anti-virus. Most of the prior mentioned programs have options not to run in start up, but they don't make it easy to find!

Hope this helps.

1/2 GB is just too small an amount of free hard drive space for XP to run efficiently.

At a minimum, your friend needs a larger hard drive.
I also recommend that they install the maximum amount of memory that the laptop can handle.

If the CPUis less than 350MHz, forget upgrading, and get a newer laptop.

To reduce the number of programs that run at startup, run the utility msconfig from the run dialog box on the start menu.
On the startup tab, deselect all of the programs that they do not need/want.

Chas