Making the Most of My Old Laptop

Black Ice

I recently got an old laptop working again by wiping the hard disk and literally starting all over again. It's about 2000-2001 era running Windows XP and it has 256mb of memory with an 8mb video card. I can't recall the processor off the top of my head, I'll have to get that info later.

Anyways, with the supplied information, I've tried messing around to see what makes it run fastest. Firefox takes up 22k of system memory, and Internet Explorer takes up 8k of memory, so I've been using Internet Explorer - the speed is a visible difference.

I've taken away shadows of Windows, text, etc. and it practically looks like it's running in safe mode.

I've changed the Windows XP theme to Windows Classic, and I can't figure out whether or not this is making it run faster or not for sure - but it seems to make a difference. Is this true? If not, I'm planning on installing a new Windows XP theme, because it's ugly as sin right now, but it functions all right.

tl;dr: I'm trying to make an old, slow laptop run efficiently, but I'm also trying to see what will and won't slow it down, and one of the questions I have is if the Windows theme it runs effects memory usage. Any additional tips are welcome.

Etch

don't use a picture for the background. The thing sounds old enough to where this might actually help.

Also, turn of unused services, there are some places online that give descriptions of what some do, and this can really help. Run msconfig and there is a services tab.

st0ned messiah

If you're only using it to browse the web and stuff like that it might be worth it to replace Windows with a Linux install. There are plenty that are incredibly easy on system resources.

supabeast

I'd just skip XP and run Win2k or *BSD on a machine that only has 256 MB of RAM.

contraband

I'll also say Linux. Grab a copy of Ubuntu, the learning curve is next to nothing if you're even just mildly good with a keyboard and it'll chug away a lot snappier than your WinXP installation.

Lodbrok

I would also recommend linux. But not Ubuntu! If you want to go with something from the ubuntu-family, try Xubuntu, it should be a lot faster than Ubuntu. Ubuntu runs gnome which is a resource hog, Xubuntu runs Xcfe which is a lot faster. If you feel a bit more adventurous, try Vector linux. I used vector on an old p3 with 198 megs and it was really snappy.