Reinstall XP over Vista: Would it run any better?

Hi everyone! My family's got 3 computers: One that is about to bust because it's 10 years old, a 4 year old laptop that's slow, and mine. Anyway, the four year old computer is really slow, and I reckon if you would format it, and then reinstall XP over it, would that make it any faster? I know this because before I got this computer I was using that one. My family also complains a lot about it. I know they'd have to backup everything before they did it, but would it work? I also should mention the four year old one is running Vista :/ And the reason it's slow is because the PC doesn't have enough ram; the laptop's got 1, when I think Vista requires 2? Please inform me if that would work! Thanks!

Prima facie, yes, XP should run better on a 1 gig ram machine than vista. But you can also add more ram.

@bill2 Thanks! Adding ram would probably work as well, because it's so cheap these days, isn't it? I wonder why?

gl5406 said:

@bill2 Thanks! Adding ram would probably work as well, because it's so cheap these days, isn't it? I wonder why?

Theres a whole thread on that.

Has anyone noticed RAM prices lately?

Here are the minimum requirements for Windows Vista.

Windows Vista system requirements - Microsoft Windows

More RAM would certainly help.

And clean it up so it is as lean as can be: Clean up factory bloatware.

It may be fast enough then, as Win7 can be on 1gb RAM.