Many people will tell you don't even try to use ME on a machine this slow but it's running great. First off I disabled System Restore. I found by reading about these applications that they were primarily for WIN 2000. Deleting these files has not seemed to cause any problems. In fact usually when my machine would crash one of these would be running in the background.
Memory also plays a big part in getting it running good.
I had 64 mb ram and had some problems. Running it now with 128 mb has made a noticeable difference. I have 256 mb on the other machine and probably will take it up to 512 next. The more you give it the more it wants. Another hardware upgrade that made a difference was my video card.