There are Linux distributions that will make the Netbook run twice as fast as it ever did with any version of Windows. Try Linux Lite for one.
Seconding this. Linux has no issues with screen resolution, and you can avoid loading out the notoriously-small netbook drives with useless bloatware. Plus, if you’ve got reasonable amounts of RAM, you can also cut the swap space on disk way back, so you don’t lose as much to the OS.