Drupal really pokey on XAMPP: ways to improve?

[pradhan]

Hello, and thank you for your help.
I have installed Drupal on a XAMPP powered localhost (Thank you, btw!) on a WinXP machine. It is dedicated to this function. My intention was to do local testing, faster, quicker, than over internet connection, but actually I am finding just the opposite! Are there performance enhancements specific to XAMPP? Drupal and XAMPP? Would adding RAM help?

Thanks for any help.
Pradhab