Windows XP (Slow Everything)?

[Guest]

I have a P4 1.6G computer with 256k memory. I recently had my computer wiped and upgraded from Win 98SE to Windows XP Pro and also had a new CDRW and video card installed. After the installation, everything in the computer seems to be running very very slowly. Load times are taking an incredibly long time to do the simplest tasks (ie. Just opening Word). Programs and games now either do not seem to be working or runs at what seems to be half the speed as before. Performance wise, Windows 98 SE seems to be much much better at ths stage

When I check the Task Manger, only 5% of my CPU is being used. I have scanned updated and scanned with Norton and no viruses found. System also defragged but does not seem to help at all. I dowloaded all the critical updates from Windows but not any of the Windows XP Updates yet (The critical updates took over two hours just to install!). Would this be a possible cause? I can't workout why it is running so slowly! I would appreciate any thoughts or solutions in this matter at all. Please help

Thanks in advance

 

[Guest]

SOme of the XP updates [non-critical] may assist, especially those regading Active X

Typically with your type of configuration one would expect that XP will run slower, having a much bigger system overhead and needing more RAM. 256Mb is enough to run XP and Word without the hard disk swapping files on and off the hard drive

Do you notice your hard disk activity is high

You should also check Device Manager and make sure that all devices are properly installed [no yellow exclamation marks]

Be a little patient and get all the XP updates, except those that have absolutely no relevance to your configuration or the applications you have on the PC

Do a disk defrag and always worthwhile, perform a full virus scan

If the PC is still slow after this then start to look deeper into tuning tips and hints.