Running Windows XP Pro with 128MB RAM--Feasible or not?

[JLamy]

Hi people.
I have been given a system to sort out for a friend.
Specs are:
Intel Pentium 4 1.3GHz processor
Microstar MS-6339 motherboard
128MB (2 sticks of 64MB) PC800 RDRAM or RIMMS (not sure which is correct)
2 sticks of blank memory to fill remaining empty banks.
32MB GeForce 2 MX graphics card
40GB Quantum Fireball AS1 hard disk
12x DVD-ROM
32x CD Writer

The system is branded as "Packard Bell", was bought in the UK preloaded with Windows ME. I suggested moving away from Win98/ME as 2000 or XP is superior and more stable. My question is should I use Windows 2000 or Windows XP on this system? I have put Win2000 on it at the moment and all seems running well. I am tempted to put XP on it, but am worried that it would run too slow once you run 2 or more apps at the same time. As Windows 2000 minimum RAM specs says 32MB as opposed to XP's 128MB I figure Win2000 would be the way to go. I will install Norton SystemWorks and Internet Security on this system so these 2 alone will hog some resources. The person using the system will do the usual word processing, email, web browsing, and DTP, and the occasional games. What do you guys think? All comments appreciated.

[stoopid]

XP is of course the better supported of the 2 OS, but as soon as you open multiple applications the system is going to page/write to the hard drive a lot, which will slow down the performance. Windows 2000 has fewer services running by default, so it tends to run slightly better than XP on slower machines.

Here's a link to determining which serbices you may or may not be able to disable to minimize the RAM usage:

http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

[stoopid]

Here's his w2k page, in case you go with that...

http://www.blackviper.com/WIN2K/servicecfg.htm

[kryyst]

Why not just put more ram in it? Win2k or XP the minimum ram you should be running is 256.

[karatekid]

Ugg, Windows XP on 128MB is .... ugg. That maybe the minimum, but the "minimum to not piss you off" is 256, and even then you see a noticeable difference when going to 512.