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Question

Okay so I am no computer expert so please keep that in mind. I have a compaq presario. It only has 256 mb of ram which was a decent amount when I purchased the computer. Anyways, I recently had to reinstall Windows XP (I was running a system recovery or something that restores everything to factory and the computer was unplugged and a system file was missing). Well I finally got it installed and now it's saying I have 244 mb of ram not to mention it is extremely slow and the internet locks up frequently with errors. I have no idea why it would run so much slower than it used to be. I have hardly any program installed and when I try to download the basics like the .net framework it just makes it slower. The cd I used downloaded only the barebones of windows meaning I had none of the extra programs that are usually included. In fact I just had a recycling bin on my desktop when I ran it the first time. Do I need more memory or what's going on? Also, why would it run so much better before instead of now? Am I missing some very important file or something? Thank you so much.
God Bless
Joanna

Answer

Hey Joanna,
I am sorry to hear about your computer troubles. I would try reinstalling windows again. It sounds like all of the components of windows were not installed correctly. Also, if you can get a normal version of windows XP to install, I think you would see better results. If this is not an option, you can try running the windows updates to see if that installs some of the missing components.

As a side note, the 256 MB of RAM is low, but it should be able to run windows XP at a reasonable level. After you get to the point where windows is not erroring, you can try some of the tips on this site to speed up a computer with low RAM such as turning down windows graphics and disabling unneccessary services. I hope this helps and feel free to write in with another question if you still need help.