Thanks for the replies.
Regardless of the RAM (which incidentally I upped from 256mb to 512mb) its only used for office work, and the user has been using the same system for 3 yrs so its not that its slow. But that its got suddenly slower in the past couple of weeks.
Theres was (based on info from the user) a corrupt MS update that failed or as I'm susupecting HD corruption that trashed part of Outlook. Bad clusters found and repaired. So the machine could not get email and from that point was running very slow. After spending 2 days looking for unsuccessfully looking a fix, and cleaning it up. I just reinstalled windows. So its working now. However the user reports the machine is still slow, and to be honest I thought it was myself. I've warned them that I suspect the HD. They've asked me to install a new one, just in case. I was wondering what the HD guru's here thought.
Coincidentally I'm actually also working on another Laptop thats dog slow aswell, but I reckon that because Norton SystemWorks was on it. Even after thats been removed, (sheer hell) it doesn't feel as nippy as I'd expect. My own laptop feels faster with a slighty worse spec. I don't feel like another fresh install of Xp at this point.