I have 1 gig of RAM now, but that's soon to change. Until mid-March, I ran more than 1 gig of RAM (1.25 gigs) and always have been on Windows XP Professional since it came out basically. It really does sound like your hard drive is in serious need of repair, though. A thorough Scan Disk and Defragmentation may be in order. Your hard drive, despite how old it is, may be trying to take a nose dive on ya. That would be bad. Another thing to check is to make sure all of your files are intact. Updated drivers and all that jazz. Especially since you're getting Poser 6 in the mail any day now. Windows XP handles memory beautifully, I've never had a memory problem with the system.