another free way to increase performance is to either disable the page file or place it on the flash drive, I know after disabling the page file on my system I noticed a lot more responsiveness in XP so if you got fast RAM it's worth a try (should also help preserve your HDD life, afaik RAM doesn't 'wear out')
I got two Kingston 1GB's aswell so I'll give eboost/page file on flashdrive a try
