I've got two problems.

The ps2 keyboard I'm connecting to the usb port via a usb converter does not respond to changes I make within control panel > keyboard. That is, when I set the keyboard to to have a max speed repeat rate, this keyboard stays at the default rate. The keyboard works, but I can't change its speed.

The ps2 mouse I'm connecting in the same manner acts as a basic 2 button scroll mouse, and does not respond to the customized settings I set it to for buttons 3-5.

In each case its as though winxp does not have a device driver loaded for either the mouse or keyboard. No idea what to try next..

Why are you connecting the keyboard that way?

because the laptop has no ps2 ports

Some keyboards have additional software that probably would control that. Maybe your solution would be to get a USB keyboard. Same thing goes for the mouse. I use MS devices on this desktop and none of the custom features are available until I install the MS software for each device. The adapter may be the problem though. USB should solve your problem. Once those devices were recognised and configured, you should be able to plug/unplug and have both work.

Yeah the problem is that windows detects them as HID devices but does not load drivers for them. Which is weird since control panel > system does show the keyboard as the standard 102-key keyboard, yet changing the keyboard rate does nothing. I do not want to buy a usb keyboard and mouse, is the reason for my post.

Try installing them manually thru device manager. Pick the nearest match to the devices and tell windows to search for the best drivers for that device. I think that to do that proceedure you may need to remove the entries for the devices in device manager.

I tried that but winxp is not able to enable the device afterwards.

After some more research I'm thinking that when you attach a ps2 device to a usb port using an adapter, winxp sees the devices as simply standard HID compliant devices, and using the extended features contained in their normal ps2 drivers is not possible. At least not so far.

I beleive that is the case. That is why I suggested trying to install by picking the hardware from a list of devices, manually.

That's what I tried in post #6. I manually tried to update the winxp stadard HID-Compatible driver with the actual driver for the device, but winxp was then not able to enable the device. winxp appears to need the HID-compatible driver just to see the device.

Sounds like you are out of options, other than USB devices, even then there is no guarantee they would work the way you want. Why don't you try Microsoft knowledge base and search for that issue.