What can make a 2.4GHz run like a 486?

The answer would be XP SP2!
Seriously, I just got a new cheapo hp computer from wal-mart, right? And even though I've used every trick I know of (turn off all effects, use the 'classic' windows style instead of the playskool style) the version of XP home runs like shit on it.

A great example of this is when shutting down GTA 3, the computer routinely slows to a crawl, and whatever windows I have open are painfully, slowly re-drawn.

It will take in the neighborhoood of fifteen to twenty seconds for everything to re-draw itself.

I've tried replacing the video card (with an nvidia one), installing windows 2000 isn't an option...so has anyone else had to deal with speed issues on windows? Any suggestions ("omfgbbq run linux!!!1one" isn't on the table, neither is *BSD) on what I can do to make my 2.9GHz respond like a machine which is >99mhz?

As much as I'd like to have the source code for XP to see the internals, as it's over 32k lines of code, I dunno if I'd want to learn it all.

Frankly, I think the reasons to have windows closed-source far outweigh the pros of having it open source.

Can you imagine the living HELL it would be having to help people who "lol tried to recompile mai kernel32 to go fastar but i think i fuked up lololo u help plz/1" ?

Anyways, I assume >>1 has already turned off system restore, as that will slow the computer down a lot, disabled startup programs he doesn't need through the system registry, and gotten rid of the miscellaneous fadein/outs XP likes to leave as a default setting that just love to waste CPU cycles. Other than that, I still think getting another 256 meg stick will show a major increase in performance without being too pricy. :P

On all the other comments, not even going to go there. I just reccomend not trying to convert people to another operating system unless you want to help them, and their family, to understand it.