Miscellaneous laptop discussions : Laptop Memory problem.

Laptop Memory problem.

I just brought the ole lady her and my first Laptop computer. I'm pretty groggy so I did a lot of research. I built my last 3 desktops so I expected few problems... well I guess I was wrong. This is what we got:

HP AMD Turion64 2.0mHz chip.
100 gig HD
512 MBs system memory
ATI 200X graphics card.

Got the system up and running and even got the wireless LAN up and running for the whole house. Problem is, I bought the dang thing so she could do work from home. However when she goes to open a document in MS Works/Word (came pre-installed yeck) she gets the following message:

"Unable to open document insufficient memory. Please close Microsoft Works etc... and try again."

This kinda upset me. A check of system memory showed over half my 512 MB was being used with god knows what. Even so, the machine should be able to open ONE document. I tried for hours. I deadened the visuals, closed down the LAN, took stuff off the toolbar and STILL no go. So I'm asking you guys. Could it be:

1. The documents in question were part of a zipped file is it trying to load them all at the same time?

2. Should I delete all preloaded progams on the machine and load my own copy of Word/Works?

3. Should I delete everything and start all over again from scratch?

Thanks in advance...

Da Worfster