AFAIK, XP will still use a pagefile. Look in the taskmanager. You may need to add a few columns.
Also, check the registry, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\DisablePagingExecutive. Page file on or of, it's 0.
I may be wrong, but having used XP with 1Gb ram and no pagefile set, yes the systems seems more responsive. Haven't looked to deep into this tho.
If you want/need a page file, setup windows like it's a linux system. Put it on a different drive then where windows lives..
