Hi, my parents own a basic Dell Dimension 1100 computer and have asked me to sort it out and get it working a bit quicker. But I can't find whats wrong!

I have downloaded all the latest programmes:
Microsoft Office 2003
Norton 2009
Advanced System Care
Windows Defender
Adobe 9
etc...

But it still is so slow and their friend who has the same computer is working a lot better
and they still have 85% of their hardrive free

Any pointers guys???

hi, my parents have a dell dimension 1100 and I was wondering whether it would actually speed up the computer or whether a top programme on a basic computer wouldn't make any difference.


Any advice?
Thanks

No. It all depends on your hardware. Windows version doesn't matter.
Actually, newer Windows version, usually requires better hardware.
Your computer performance mainly depends on processor speed and amount of RAM.
There are other ingredients to the picture, but those two are the main players.

If you are wondering about upgrading from XP to Vista and your system doesn't have adequate resources it will probably seem slower especially if you don't have enough ram. For Vista in my opinion you should have 1 gb of ram but I strongly recommend 2 gb or more because Vista requires more resources than XP. Whether or not you will have good performance with an XP to Vista upgrade depends on your computer. I found a model in that line when I googled it & it only had 256 mb of ram for XP. I wouldn't even have an xp computer with 256 mb of ram. My parents had an XP computer with that much and it drove them nuts. Everyone I've known that doesn't have enough ram for their version of windows (be it Vista or even XP) has complained that that their computer is slow. If you only have that much and your parents think that it is slow then putting Vista on it would only make it worse. Microsoft's recommended requirments specify 1 gb of ram for Ultimate.