Originally Posted by Kana

Okay, I'll give these a shot.

1. GIMP will run on Windows XP. XP and Windows Server actually replaced the Windows 2000 line. I've run it on XP, so I know it works.

2. I don't know how well an old version of PSP would run on XP, but it probably wouldn't hurt to try if you have a copy laying around.

3. I think the bit about Windows not being able to handle video is just an Apple marketing tactic. It all depends on the software you are using and having the right codecs installed. I use Cyberlink PowerDirector, which is unfortunately not free, with the XviD codec. It uses a good bit of system resources, but it works very smoothly. The K-lite Codec Pack, which I'm not sure if I've mentioned yet, is a nice one-stop solution to handle video and audio encoding and decoding, but you'll still need an editor. I guess Macs come more prepared to do video editing out of the box.

4. I'm not really familiar with system mechanic. It seems to be a bit of Swiss Army Knife, in that it does a lot of system maintenance functions that aren't directly related. You probably won't find one single freeware app that does all that, as freeware generally tends to have a narrower scope. One nice system cleaner I've used is Crap Cleaner (a.k.a. CCleaner). Microsoft also made it's own registry cleaner called RegClean. Some other PC tuning apps are listed here: PC World - Browse System Resources Tune-Up.