Slow Like Molasses

My desktop is really really slow, it doesn't feel like it's CoreDuo 1.8Ghz with 2Gb of RAM at all... I guess swapping in my old HDD with an existing XP install isn't an ideal way to go about things. I think the drivers and crap that I needed for the 1st MB is conflicting with something on this MB... Bah! It looks like I have to do a reformat of this PC. All my files are on a 2ndary drive so that's not going to be a problem. It's time spent installing all the applications I use. The good thing is I get to have an ultra clean PC after cause I can opt out of installing applications that I don't use that much. So far the shortlist is XP [duh], Office 2007, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Reader, Firefox, Yahoo Messenger, Activesync. These are pretty much the apps I use on a day to day basis. Then I have to go call MS to have my copy of XP activated and validated again. Then updating! Damn... that'll take a lot of time. I wonder if it's time I should be taking another look at Vista? I mean they have SP1 out for it don't they... maybe they've made it a bit more resource friendly [yeah right!], Vista Business is a little less than PhP 8,000.00 IIRC, kinda steep.