Ok, bottom line, I will probably be able to run Skyrim, but it'll freeze and crash often? And be low quality? What exactly would I do with my laptop to prevent this (get a better video card, hard drive)?

installing windows 7 would be a good start.

how much would installing windows 7 help? because $80 is alot of money...

there really isn't much you can do... short of buying/building a new rig... you can't install a new video card in your machine.

windows 7 IS better than Vista, but it's really not gonna make much (if any) difference in Skyrim on your current system, it would really just be a waste of cash.

Oh yeah, it won't necessarily crash or freeze, it may but it could run alright. it just won't look good and you'll probably get some jerkiness and lag.

One thing I would recommend if using a lappy is a notebook cooling pad, they can shave a few degrees off internal temps, and can really make a difference.

Ya PC's are much more cost effective for gaming and temps are easier to keep down when all that hardware isn't micro and scrunched together. There are a few "gaming laptops" but those are way overpriced.

not a WHOLE lot, but it would be handy due to your low amount of RAM.

Regardless of all the great advice and help offered to you, the bottom line is your laptop will have difficulty playing Skyrim, it it could at all. Perhaps someone with alot of tech experience would getting it running with some tweaking. However, as someone else has said, it is very very likely that your intregrated graphics card would not be able to run this game (and many many other games as well).
Being brually honest, you would be better off spending your money on a better PC, however given your experience and knowledge about PC's, you would be better off getting a console to play games on. Sorry.

Okay, thanks everybody, this is a very helpful forum. I'm wondering, would I have anything to lose for just trying it out on my laptop? I know some games have some kind of code that only lets you download the game once. Is that the case with Skyrim? If I try to get it on my laptop and it doesn't work, would I just be able to wait until I get a better PC and download it and play it on that?

You can try Skyrim on any PC (desktop or laptop) on which you can log on to your Steam account.

The beauty of steam is that once its on your account you can use it on any computer at all, all you have to do is log in with your account on that system. However you can only use one system at a time. So you can try it now, and then use it on a better system later with ease. Its up to you if you want to spend the money now on the game, or wait till later when you have a system you know can handle it.

Okay, sounds good. Thank you everybody, you've all been very helpful.