Professions are in game to sink money in all MMO (except SWG) it was same. Grind for materials/money was worst of those MMOs ... here is no such grind still but money sink is same I see.

Go step by step and undone any changes. Reboot. Then just stop Aero, Sidebars & Widgets and Search. Repair game client.

Some advices... Don't disable services until you have good knowledge what exactly they do... otherwise you could have OS issues instead of boost. Stop nerding witch OS is better, it depends on current hardware. New OS works better on new hardware (even low budget one), older OS could over perform it dramatically on older but high end one. I have done many performance tests, fastest Windows OS till now is 2003 server, but it is not easy to install on new chipsets and little mistake here could degrade performance very much. So until you have a chipset that doesn't support XP, try both OS (all have trials on Microsoft sites if I remember right). It is time consuming of course, to install 2 OS with all drivers and patches to do a series of benchmarks. At least if you have ATI video, try to change settings there, not in game. Little tweaking in ATI Catalist Control Center gave me about 10 FPS more... (Nvidia center could also have such options but I have not been used Nvidia cards in years). So my advise for average users - don't stop anything else than Aero, Sidebars, Search ... try your video driver software settings and avoid Vista, it is worst in performance from all Windows I have tested.

/Signed Best time is early morning...