Well, have XP also, and volume orig date is 2008/05/07, so it has been running for some time now. It generally cold boots to usable desktop in about two minutes, but was used by another family member before I got it, and at that time, it was very slow to get there. Something around five to seven minutes, so I’m happy with the way it is running now.
The difference? A lot of unnecessary programs, PUP’s running in the background, some malware, etc.,.
Yes, I do see a system slowdown as avast! checks/updates the virii definitions, but, that is not an issue once that is done. It is, after all, a P4 system, and runs with old and outdated technology not supported anymore by most vendors out there.
It is not cutting edge at all, not even close to it. Would never recommend installing W7 on it, as one would never see the end of W7 support with such an old machine, nor would one be necessarily happy with how it would run on it, either. That’s assuming one could find W7 drivers for all the old hardware in the first place, and also assuming a 32-bit setup as well. You can’t run a 64-bit os on a 32-bit machine
Seems like the system is freezing if asked to do more than the usual, as noted above, for example, Windows Update comes online when avast! is also updating. Way to avoid that is to delay WU install til after avast! is done or do it manually. Also not recommended to delay any updates for more than a week or so, as any updates will take more time, not less, to complete. Two minutes or less to update avast!, (if it is current) is about right for a XP system.
We have been fortunate Microsoft chose to support XP for as long as they have; fortunate avast! still does, and that their XP version works as well as it does.