My computer is running slow, how do I speed it up?

you can't the system resources on the xp pc required to run xp are a lot less than what is needed to run windows vista.
how much ram and how much disk space !
it says 512 Mb ram but it will run like a snail
15 Gig of free hard disk space and a 20 Gig hard drive
https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/kb/919183
DO you have an upgrade copy of Vista ?

LOL 512MB is mighty low for streaming movies. And a 36GB Hard Drive is low too. Have you checked to see how much space you have left on the hard drive? Click Start/My Computer and then Right Click on the Local Disk C Drive and select Properties. It will show you a Pie Chart of how much space you've used and how much is free. I bet your disk space is pretty low.

Try to upgrade your RAM 256 to 512MB or 1Gig.and try to change your harddrive to 20G to 40G or 80G.

You said you have 512K of RAM; I assume you mean 512MB. Either way, you are in dire need of a RAM upgrade. The sweet spot for XP memory-wise was 2gigs. The working minimum is 512MB, but the recommended spec is at least 1. If you upgraded to at least 2 gigs of ram, you'll see a speed improvement.
If you need help finding out what type of memory to get, let me know.

If you added more ram to the computer that is a slower speed, the memory will run at a lower speed overall. Even if one stick is faster, they will run at the speed of the slower memory. I would check that. Sometimes it slows your computer down to increase the ram if you decrease the speed.
If its the same speed, you can usually increase your video dedicated memory in the BIOS settings.
Good Luck!

take the old ram chip(s) out. The speed should be the same. e.g. PC100, PC133 etc. and install your new chips

Check with your motherboard documentation.
May i know your motherboard model??

i think you should try the drivers that come the closest to your computer`s specs

i need to know which program you are using to give you step by step instructions to acces your speed settings

i am pretty sure your problem is a faulty music player.. try winamp. its free, i hope that helps you..