Download the Bytecoin official wallet and try to mine BCN through the interface there. If your CPU is a quad core it is worth it, and the price of BCN has increased lately. Link where to download the wallet :

https://bytecoin.org/downloads/ 

As for your GPU- I am afraid it is way outdated so you cannot put it to good use.

Sha256 is not recommended to even learn on CPU. I would look at scrypt X11 or skunkhash. With lower diff you'll at least be able to see shares submitted. Learn how to tune equipment. XRY or Royalties is good to learn on. Bismuth is mined via CPU only and is python based. Great and valuable learning experience right there.

you are correct that it is out dated
 but i agree that it is one of the best ways to understand what to do or at least learn.
i will try to look up a few older apps that should help you out
 and get things running  and then i will send you a pm on where to find them
 if that is ok? but please give just a bit more info as
model of motherboard...
and actuall model of core2quad
as for the gtx 260 i already know what to look for... thanks
 and good luck.

Ethereum requires a card with 3gb of RAM or more. If you want to mine ETH you need at least a GTX 960 or so bare minimum

Having a node is only required if you're mining by yourself.

As for your other point, the fact that you are using a card that dates back to before cryptocurrency was a thing might be why.

1) I've never heard of GUIMiner, can't help you on that one. It seems like people used to mine with the 260 from the brief research I did on benchmarks, so maybe that particular software just isn't configured for it? If there's a way to contact the developers you could try that, or just try other mining software.
2) I haven't personally mined Ethereum, but a quick google search led me to this: https://steemit.com/ethereum/@gobbahfett/easiest-guide-to-mining-ethereum-eth-windows-amd-nvidia-part-1. If it doesn't work, there are Ethereum-specific forums you could check on to get a much more comprehensive answer, I'm sure. For Monero, the most popular software is Xmr-Stak: https://github.com/fireice-uk/xmr-stak-nvidia.
3) ETC is Ethereum Classic, which is not used all that much anymore. It still trades, but for a far lower rate than ETH. Most people are mining ETH over ETC because it's more popular, more expensive and therefore usually more profitable. As far as I know both versions are still using GPU mining, since Ethereum's blockchain is ASIC-resistant. Monero is as well, which is why those are the two coins I recommended. There may be other ASIC-resistant coins that I don't know about, of course, but ETH and XMR (Monero) are trading relatively high recently and should always be profitable with GPUs, though power costs may eat into that depending on your price per kWh and the efficiency of your GPU. If the benchmarks I saw for the GTX 260 are accurate, you shouldn't have to worry, but the best way to actually test your hash rate would be to install a miner and check the rate after a few hours.

Ouch. Yeah, that's a little out of date. I can't find any benchmarks on Monero for the 260; I did find someone saying he's receiving 32.5 MH/s on Ethereum mining with a GTX 290, which seems great considering the rates more powerful graphics cards are getting. That's roughly the same hashrate I found on an old benchmark chart showing GPU efficiency in Bitcoin mining for the 260. Obviously 30 MH/s wouldn't be worth the power it costs with the current Bitcoin difficulty, but if it can really pull 20+ MH/s on Ethereum that's fairly solid, enough to mine 1.75 ETH a year at the current difficulty. The 260's reasonably low on electric costs at ~180 watts, which would put your profits at about $4-500 a year. If it performs similarly well with Monero, at a 500+ H/s rate and that power draw it would be about the same profit rate. Depends if those hashrates are accurate or not though, I'm curious if they are.

Not sure you're going to find any way to efficiently mine bitcoin itself without ASICs being involved somehow; I'm not sure if cloud mining allows for that and what kind of profit rates to expect. Other than that, your best bet might be to use your GPU or even your CPU to mine something ASIC-resistant like Ethereum or Monero, though of course that discussion doesn't entirely belong in the Bitcoin mining forum. Any coin that has ASICs developed for it will be inefficient to mine with anything else; trying to mine bitcoin with a GPU is like throwing your money at the power company and asking them to burn it for you because you can't be bothered spending it, though.

If you don't have the funds to build out your own mining operation why don't you try cloud Mining? I use Genesis Mining as well as others but consider Genesis to be the best. The URL is http://www.genesis-mining.com and you can use this promo code to get 3% off "ZOHNkL".

Depends on your budget really, as well as the specs of your computers. They could potentially be worth running, mining music or Zcash or something