Upgrading From Windows ME to XP

Yes. 64MB is the minimum. I actually have seen XP running well on machines with 128Mb of RAM and slower processors (like when I ran it on a 200Mhz Pentium).

If you are short on cash that would be a certainly acceptable solution. One warning however. . . That hard drive sounds like it's original and pretty old. 5 years is essentially the lifespan of most drives and its more likely to fail. Keep that in mind when determining how much this upgrade job will cost and the expected lifespan of the entire system.

It will run like a drunk turtle with only 128 Mb of ram. Yes it will run, but it will be quiet laggy as it's going to be constanly refreshing the memory when opening programs like IE. It will also be accessing the hard drive alot more cause it will be relying on the virtual memory alot.

Even if the system runs slowly I think you will have a better experience with XP. Windows ME never worked well for me even when it was new. I can't imagine it's gotten better with age. Once you load XP you will be able to actually run more recent software which will run with fewer errors.

From my personal experience I saw someone use a 200Mhz Pentium with 128MB of RAM for almost two years with XP installed. It ran slowly, but was rock solid compared to Windows ME.

I agree with th others about the speed. IMO At the min 512 megs. However run the following tests to see if the computer will run xp. Also you need to go to dells website to see if it has xp drivers for your specific model. no drivers - then no install xp...

XP Readiness Test