Upgrading to WinXP Professional

First off, here are the requirements to run XP, from Microsoft's site:

PC with 300 megahertz or higher processor clock speed recommended; 233 MHz minimum required (single or dual processor system);* Intel Pentium/Celeron family, or AMD K6/Athlon/Duron family, or compatible processor recommended

128 megabytes (MB) of RAM or higher recommended (64 MB minimum supported; may limit performance and some features)

1.5 gigabytes (GB) of available hard disk space*

Super VGA (800 ? 600) or higher-resolution video adapter and monitor

CD-ROM or DVD drive

Keyboard and Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing device

Now, that is what they say you need for a minimum. Here are my practical experience numbers:

Processor: 1Ghz PIII minimum
RAM: 512MB minimum
The rest is fine.

I have tried running XP on lower-end older machines, and it just isn't worth it. Even on a 700 Mhz with 256 MB RAM, it was too dang slow!

So, I recommend that you don't bother with XP on these machines you have.

Hook a system up and run the XP readiness test at www.pcpitstop.com

This will check all the other hardware for XP compatibility.
On older PCs you can run into issues with Printers, Video Cards, Modems, Scanners and other peripherals.

Personally, I double Microsoft's minimum requirements to define my minimum system for ANY version of Windows.

More RAM would be a must.

Unless these PCs have relatively high end (and newer) graphics cards, I would wait and replace the PC with newer hardware.

Chas