The Dell Inspiron 600M laptop I purchased in the late summer of 05 has slowed down quite a bit in the last year and a half. It's seen a lot of use, but nearly all of it is just internet browsing, email, and cropping pictures with Paint Shop Pro. Now it takes sometimes 10-20 seconds just to open Word or PSP, and just displays the little hourglass cursor for obnoxiously long periods of time when I try to do just about anything else. "Not responding" errors are becoming more common.

I've ran ad-ware, spybot, and hijackthis, as well as every tool on easycleaner, and also defragged, but it's all made little difference. Is there anything else I can do? I've searched advice on Google, but everything I've come across just lists the things that I've already tried.

1. http://dban.sourceforge.net/
2. Reinstall Windows
3. Repeat.

Format the HD, install os and progs anew, defrag, and you should be much better off. If it's still slow after that, then you know it's some stupid, buggy program causing it in the background.

It looks like a windows XP CD is required to reinstall....is there another way to do it? My computer didn't come with one..

Run a virus scanner. Or two.

Use this free online scanner: http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ (may need Internet Explorer instead of Firefox)

Download, install and run the free version of AVG: http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1

Scan your system completely with both just in case.

Also, try messing with your services.
Start -> Run -> Type in services.msc

Look through the list and see if there are any 3rd party programs that are Started. Some of them may cause performance degradation.

Look at this list as a reference:

http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/service411.htm#TCP/

It's been a while since I checked through my different services, but here is a list of the Services I have started on my PC, ~80% of which are required for proper functioning of Windows.

Cryptographic Services
DCOM Server Process Launcher
DHCP Client
Event Log
Network Connections
Network Location Awareness (NLA)
Plug and Play
Protected Storage
Remote Access Connection Manager
Remote Procedure Call (RPC)
Shell Hardware Detection
Telephony
Themes
Windows Audio
Windows Image Acquisition (WIA)
Windows Management Instrumentation
Workstation

For services not listed above, look in the Blackviper description to see if you can disable them. Some services (like Print Spooler for Printing, or Server for LAN file sharing) I do not have Started that may be necessary if you want to use the related functions. If you are not sure if you should disable a Windows service in the list, you should probably leave it as is.

Also, another thing you could try is pressing Ctrl + Alt + Del and disabling items listed. System, System Idle Process, svchost, explorer, taskmgr, and potentially others are required for the proper functioning of your system. Just for the heck of it, try disabling any items not listed above. See if performance of the system changes.

Just DL a copy of windows.
Thats legal if you already have a key... right?
If not then ignore this post completely.

Not that easy with Win XP. Whenever you reinstall XP, it asks you to validate your copy of the OS through activation via the internet. If you activate it too many times, microsoft will assume you're pirating and may force you to purchase a new license. Thankfully, with a good excuse that is, you can call tech support and tell them that you're just reinstalling and not pirating and they'll give you a new activation key like they did with me. I'm not quite sure if I could do that a second time with them so I'm praying I don't need to reinstall XP again in the near future.

Edit: I should add though that you usually are allowed to reactivate a few times before they microsoft will urge you to get a new license. I didn't need to call them until around the 4th time or so. The last time I reinstalled XP, it did so about 3 times in a row because of a stupid faulty motherboard. That's the last time I ever buy hardware over the internet ever again!

Try your computer in safe mode.

Yeah, if you can find a non-cracked .iso, that still requires the key.