You can't bring back Windows XP unless you
wish to purchase a full version of Windows XP
and perform a clean install. Perhaps you can
enlighten us by what we mean by "absolutely awful".
Try the following performance tips:
Open Power Options (its in the Control Panel) and then
place a dot next to High Performance.
Next:
Open Device Manager (its in the Control Panel) and then
right-click on your hard drive (under Disk Drives). Click
on "Policies" and make sure there are check marks next to
"Optimize for Performance", "Enable write caching on
the disk", and "Enable advanced performance", then click OK.
Next, perform a Disk Cleanup:
Click on the blue Vista start button and then on the Computer
entry in the Start Menu. Right-click on your hard drive and
select Properties > Disk Cleanup > Files from all users.....
More Options > Clean Up (System Restore and Shadow Copies).
Consider installing addition RAM up to 2GB. Having a total of
2GB RAM installed will significantly improve overall performance.
Visit:
http://www.crucial.com/ and run the Crucial System Scanner Tool.