[Bush2000]

But the base OS is immensely stable.

Most OS kernels are immensely stable. It's when you start adding device drivers that things get really interesting (and unstable) ...

[Quilla]

Thank you all for your invaluable assistance. I am proud to report that after following much of the advice given and adding an additional 256 meg of RAM our XP slow performance problem is solved! And to think, my engineer in the next office thinks I fixed his computer's problems all by myself! LOL. Again, thank you all.