(Old) Computer Help

So there was an old computer in the closet of my new place. I bought it several years ago for my friend who lives here, but she didn't use it much. Her then-teen-aged granddaughter did, though.
I dug it out today and plugged it all up and, amazingly, it runs.
It hadn't been started since May, 2009, or at least that's the last time anything got updated.
I updated everything (over 80 updates from MS alone!), including installing MSE and IE 8 and XP SP 3.
The problem is, it seems really slow. That may be due to me using faster machines for awhile, but it's dial-up slow. All the programs I open are slow to start, games are slow, minimizing/maximizing is slow, everything is slow.
Analyzed the HD to see if it needs defragging; nope.
Ran the virus scan; none, which is also amazing considering all the sketchy web sites the granddaughter probably visited while searching for free music, videos, etc.
Earlier today I checked out Internet Options in the control panel and set my new home page, changes a few settings, deleted cookies. Now, after all the updates, Internet Options isn't in the control panel.
So, any suggestions on how to make it perform better? And where IO went?
It's an HP, only 512 MB of RAM, XP.
Why? You can't have too many computers, and a spare around the house could come in handy if my current surfing machine goes down.
Thanks!

My guess is it's only the small amount of RAM that makes it so slow. You can't find machines with that little RAM nowadays. Adding the Security Essentials alone might be crucial.

Over time computers slow down for different reasons. In the case of our PCs, however, it's not the hardware components but the operating system and software that degrades over time due to regular computer use. All operating systems are subject to patterns of gradual fragmentation, clutter, and corruption over time, and the newest version of Windows is subject to the same inevitable performance issues.
My guess would be one of two things.  If the computer is running really slow you may have a bloated registry. The registry in XP was notorious for slowing things down over time. Some people try to fix this by doing a fresh install of the operating system. The Fact remains while performing a fresh install of the operating system is one way to get your PC to run faster, it is certainly not the only way or even the most efficient or effective way to do it. This is mostly because it can be an incredibly long and time consuming process.
I would start by looking at the programs that run in the background. If you have too many applications start when the system boots up then that will take cpu cycles and ram. If the system runs out of ram it will start to use the hard drive to simulate ram. This is known as virtual ram. This slows a computer way down. Click on start and go to run. then type msconfig. When the window opens click on the start tab. Every program you see there starts when you turn windows on. Click on the ones you don’t need.
Another thing you might try to do is clean your registry. This is risky and you should know what you are doing. Below is a link for guidance. If worse comes to worse you can reinstall your operating system and that would be like getting a new machine that runs much better. Being an HP it should have restore disks or it should have a restore feature somewhere in a hidden partition on the hard drive.
[link=http://www.pcworld.com/article/149951/how_to_clean_your_windows_registry_and_speed_up_your_pc.html]http://www.pcworld.com/ar..._speed_up_your_pc.html[/link]
Hope this points you in the right direction. For windows XP 512 megs of ram should be plenty

 The hard drive might need a defrag as well. I just checked my OS drive and it was 14% fragmented. That was enough to make my plug-ins cough a little more than usual.

Works great!

As for defragging, I use Power Defragmenter GUI.  It doesn't have the limitations of the normal defrag (like requiring a certain percentage of diskspace free).  It's also free and the link is HERE.