[Gryphin]

If your system is "slowing down", try to uninstall a lot of the small programs.
Gator, WeatherBug, various add in toolbars for your browser, fancy programable keyboard, mouse and other drivers that don't contribute a lot to performance.
I remove those on a regular basis at work, (where we run Win 95 and Office 2000).
There is another program that changes your desktop everytime you log into the internet.