How 2: for a Noob

You'll probably want Quicktime as well, although it's not becoming as much of a necessity since many websites are shifting over to flash-based movie players and divx.

As, evongugg said, you have to partition before you install Windows, at least you do if you want to partition the same drive that Windows is installed on. If, however, you have an additional hard drive you can manually format and partition inside of Windows - just follow the instructions that usually come with the harddrive. (If you don't have the instructions, just ask and I'll help you out)

For some office software, you can try http://www.openoffice.org/ . It can handle all M$ office documents to my knowledge. Also, if you need something to clean your 'e'tracks every once in a while, try this: http://www.ccleaner.com/ . Just leave it on the default settings and run it once every one to two weeks. It will clean anywhere between 100-800MB of useless data off your computer (temp files, Internet Cache, Cookies, index.dat files, recent file history, etc. - *if you need your Event logs, make sure to remove that from the CCleaner options since I'm pretty sure it is set to remove them by default)

Anyways, if you have any more questions don't hesitate to ask.

I would NOT install Quicktime. It's practically useless nowdays since VLC media player will play everything that QT can (without all the iTunes prompts and high probabilty of errors upon install), not to mention that 99.9999% of site that that actually offer QT videos also have them in WMP format.

First thing that I did was use Disk Defragmentor and install all updates, note when updating Windows it may take several (six different times) different times for it to complete. Don't update your BIOS unless you are having problems with hardware compatibilty problems. I am on my out of box BIOS still and its fine.

People needlessly update the BIOS simply because they can and that causes them to run into problems that there asking for, updating when there is a reason to is the only way. If your system is behaving badly and you have tried everything then update the BIOS. BIOS release notes tell you more about that BIOS update info and what it fix.

What do you wish to accomplish? From a performance point of view, partitioning may actually hurt. Having a second partition for backup, or another OS is a reason, but both of those reasons are better served by a separate device.

What is wrong with your registry? If you don't know, then don't fix it.

About partitioning: making a 'small' partition for OS and apps and another, larger one for data has two direct advantages: apps and OS use a lot of small files, that are often updated - thus rewritten all over the place. Since Windows (all versions) suck fragmentation-wise, storing your data ion a drive (with little data movements) means you don't have to defrag it often (once every six month to a year) while you can defrag your system files alone.
Moreover, in case of reinstall (every six months for a hapless WinXP user), wiping out the system partition is much less of a hassle: much less backup to perform.

About apps: OpenOffice.org ++; VLC ++ (plays all formats, and DVDs); forget Quicktime and Real; get a Free antivirus (Avast is very good but heavy; AVG is not as good but light). Antispyware : get Spybot (best of breed); web browser: ditch IE, get either Firefox or Opera; firewall: if you are not directly connected to the Net (bridge), WinXP's integrated firewall is good enough, otherwise several options are available.

For best performance, I personally disable the Themes service, uninstall Microsoft file sharing and client, disable Server service, disable System Restore, use PageDefrag on every boot, set up a fixed size swap file, and remove all system sounds. Latest drivers always help.

Finally, if you want a system that screams of speed and stability, install Linux - it will install everything myou may need in one single go