BOAC ... just under 6,600MB of free disk space at present. How much RAM would you recommend?
Engineer ... thanks for that. I wasn't feeling "very very brave", so have left the registry settings alone. However, I used the first bit of advice to get rid of a few background programs, though they're not really essential anyway and I have little use for them.
Will post later, to advise results. Will also see what I can do abou increasing RAM.