Windows

your machine doesn't have 256MB of memory.
xp will install with 64 and 128 is the recommended minimum, but in the real world as you noticed you need more then 128 MB of Ram.
So whats the amount of Ram that you have and what is the cpu speed ?
If you have 128 or less by more memory.
office and nav and zonealarm take a huge chunk from your total amount of memory.
and some programs , don't uninstall cleanly and leave traces in windows and the registry.

Leopold

You can clear your starup files by running system configuration utility.
- Go to Start -> Run -> Type in msconfig -> Hit ok, System Configuration Utility Window will come up, Click on startup tab, you will see all your startup files, just check the files that you need, eg: norton antivirus. Click on apply then close, Reboot the system.

Are you being harrased by pop-ups. Could be that you have lots of pop-up or spy programs running in the background. Things like Kazza install gator and other dodgy sites will install spyware. |If you have too many of these running it will use all your resources.

The first thing I do when a computer starts slowing down is to first clear out all temporary internet files and cookies, run scandisk, then defragment the hard drive. All of this should be done after you uninstall the trial programs you don't use, of course.

XP has a prefetch built in. Everytime you launch an application it places a marker file inside the c:\windows\prefetch folder and then when you boot it tries to pre-load these programs. Suppose to help speed up the boot process but you really should clean this folder out about once a month.

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