Glen,
Have you tried any of the items from the site that Marklwood posted? You might want to look at those (or get your son who works for Dell to help you if you are not sure about them) and see if one or more could help open up some resources.
Here is a link to the main location of those tweaks.
http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/supertweaks.htm
(Thanks Mark)