I finally found a good site on how to free resources on Windows XP. Since I have only 128MB on this computer, I desperately need a way to use memory efficiently. When in "normal" use the machine uses roughly 260MB which means that it has to swap a lot when I switch between programs. The Symantec page I found with Google had a link to Black Viper's page with excellent information about the services Windows XP can have running and which can be disabled and when. I was able to free over 30MB of memory.
Edit: various sources I read later on reported that the advice of "Black Viper" is doubtful and sometimes just wrong. The blackviper site has been down for quite some time.
Maybe you are wondering if I am masochistic, running Windows XP with only 128 MB. But the computer memory I ordered some time ago turned out to be bad. After putting it in the computer system, with all precautions taken, like unplugging the computer and holding the metal parts of the case while handling the memory carefully, most applications started to crash randomly. Some will say that it's normal Windows behavior, but that is of course a statement made by misinformed people, or a bad joke.
When I created a boot floppy with memtest86 on it, and checked the memory, it turned out to be indeed bad. I got a lot of errors above the 192MB boundary. So I returned the memory and am still waiting for a working upgrade. I still consider it odd that the memory was bad, because Kingston is supposed to be an excellent brand. At first, I thought that the type of memory was wrong, but since the 128MB memory is called "KVR266X64C25/128", and the 256MB "KVR266X64C25/256", those must have similar specifications.