OT...calling all geeks

OK, I finally got tired of bsods, lockups, illegal ops etc, etc. so I
upgraded to WinXP Home Edition today. So far, what I've seen I like; the
only fly in the ointment seems to be that windows open slower and it takes
noticeably longer to boot up and shut down. I'm used to windows fairly
snapping open with W98 (when it wasn't locked up, etc) I have 512 megs RAM
and an Athlon 1.2 gig processor. Am I gonna have to go to a faster
processor to kick this thing in the butt or what? One small negative in
this whole thing is my scanner software does not work with WinXP..time for
a new scanner I guess.

Frank Church
...'fishin' for help to keep this partly on topic