I have to agree here.
I'm currently rusty in Windows and a newbie in Linux and am just getting [hopefully] towards the stage I know my Linux system as well as I did my Windows system. My Windows boxes ran well because I knew every process that ran and why, meaning they ran well and problem free. I know that sounds like "I was so good" but I mean "I spent so much time.".

I think that the biggest Achilles Heel of the Windows system is ... (a) "the Registry" ... and, (b) "defining millions of people as password-free Administrator users."

This naturally lead to "the presumption of the necessity of 'anti-virus' (sic) software."

... which made multi-millionaires out of Peter Norton & Co, as millions of people "subscribed' to software that would detect (after the fact!) that someone had just stolen the race-horse out of the (unprotected ...) barn ... again.

People "simply accepted" that digital computers (which are, after all, "merely machines") can, somehow, "become infected" ...

Microsoft Corporation had no problem with this idea ... Symantec paid them very well ... as long as they felt that they could simply presume that :eek: "they were the only game in town." But, today, it's kinda painful to watch them stare in disbelief at Android and OS/X.

Hi,

I have antivirus, it's "Bitdefender" who provide the majority of of antivirus solutions to the organization that I work for. I have Windows Defender but it's "Turned off". I think I've disabled a load of things from automatically starting using Autoruns and have defragmented the hard drive.

I'm afraid I really don't know what other information I can give you guys to be able to help, so I'd really appreciate explicit instructions and requests. Derek, I'm not sure what OS specs you require, but will gladly advise.

I'll try state that this laptop really isn't for 'fun' or 'personal' use, I don't install software on it other than that which came preinstalled before it was given to me, and other software such as Adobe Reader which these days I consider essential. It is very possible I have inadvertently installed a load of Malware as I accidentally installed McAfee when updating Flash! Even the Adobe Reader updater asked if I wanted to install some 'toolbar'. I've become pretty reliant on aptitude for sorting my software issues. "I need piece of software to do X, 'sudo aptitude search X'. I also have a lot of trust in aptitude, after all, if I don't trust the Mint and Debian Developers, why am I using their software? Even Microsoft are desperate for me to install 'Bing Search', 'Bing Desktop', Internet Explorer and any other crap they can throw at me.

Specs
 

These tips that I gave you, especially the CCleaner, will speed up you system. If you could, the main specs I was looking for was the OS version, CPU type, CPU core number, RAM, HDD space, any those basic things. This will help solve the issue more directly. Also, when do you tend to notice the slow of the computer? Startup? While opening a specific program? If you could, open a task manager and have it on the processes page. Align the list to CPU usage. When you see it going slow, switch to that and see which program/process is using the most power. Also, do you notice if the HDD is being access during that time? Give some general facts and observations of the problem.


Zzzach...

Derek, thanks for the reply. I've run all the applications that you pointed me to and I think there is a marked improvement on start up, but the time that I really notice the slow down is when I'm browsing my documents with the file manager (I'm not sure what it's called, it only talks about Windows within the "About" screen.). If I open a folder with some of the articles that I'm currently studying at the moment, if I right click one of them to print, the title bar in the Window turns to "Not responding" and the arrow turns to a circle for a long time. It does eventually recover rather than outright crash.

Specs wise I have a Lenovo B570, running Windows 7 Home Premium Service Pack 1, 64bit, 4GB RAM, it's a Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-2330M CPU @ 2.20GHz 2.20GHZ with a 500GB non-solid state hard drive.

Behavior like this usually is caused by:
- a misbehaving software that hooked into the file manager (on Windows it is named Explorer), like Antivirus software or other software scanning files before you can access them
- a faulty harddisk

To rule out the second just use the disk manufacturer's diagnosis tool, if it doesn't come up with errors this most likely is a software error. In that case you may want to try to temporarily disable the antivirus software or other software that may be installed and accessing the files.

You could list all installed programs (with the 'install/remove programs' thing) and check which ones are needed and which ones are not. I'm pretty sure you will find a lot of crap that insidiously installed itself over time, and is probably running in the background. (Feel free to post the list here.)

Other things that may slow down your machine are automatic updates (which will install updates at the worst moments) and 'real-time AV protection' (which can just run every time you open a folder.)

Yes, I agree with the previous two posts. Your CPU looks acceptable. Just to be sure, you are accessing local files right? Not from internet servers or things like that? Windows can also freeze up depending on how many files are in said folder. If there are a lot, then try organizing into smaller folders. It does sound reasonable and quite true if you have malware on your computer. Honestly, BitDefender may help, but I'd try something more lightweight than that. BitDefender also can cause serious security issues if it is not configured correctly. Try talking with an administrator of the computers that you use. Mention to him switching to Avast! or AVG, and if your "company" or organization has the budget, Kaspersky is extremely powerful, especially for businesses. It is also rather lightweight. I will look into this problem more. Thanks for the specs!


Zzzach...

Sorry for double posting. Can you give me the list of the processes open using task manager when this problem occurs? Be sure to "show all processes" (you may need to be an admin for this tool). If you are unable to "show all processes", there is a program that allows for process handling without admin privileges.

V - irus
I - fected
S - pam
T - rojan
A - Adware

Only if you don't have a proper antivirus solution and refuse to install updates (a behavior I often have seen from users with pirated XP systems).
I use mainly Linux, nonetheless I get spammed, so the OS seems to be irrelevant.
Both problems caused by uninformed users and OS agnostic.

Use the CCleaner, I've used it for years, best out there. Forget about the Piriform Defraggler, it's good, but MyDefrag is much better.

Never have I ran "Anti-Virus" on MY Windows computers (work computer and my wife's computers are a different story and that's a soapbox for another day), I run SpyBot S&D with Tea Timer (prevents registry edits without approval, I even disabled the Live Scan on the Symmantic at workSymmanticic was attacked twice with a Trojan specific foSymmanticic), I told IT, they were fine with that, but wanted me to leave it installed, so I use SpyBot at work now.

On my Windows 7 work computer I searched "Speed up Windows 7" and turned off a bunch of the useless bells and whistles.

Drop the Firefox (at least for now) and run IE 9 or 10 it is faster on Windows 7 in my experience and doesn't need add-on for ad block.

The Windows Explorer issue have the Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del, Task Manager or RighTask bar Taskbar, Task Manager open and see which processes are using the most memory (you can usuallyInternetinternet search to find what programs the processes are used by.

My guess is your "Anti-Virus" trying to run a live scan, but could be some other software.

Might want to see if you can remove any of the preinstalled Crapware that Lenovo and others bog the OS with, go through the list of installed software in CCleaner and remove anything you don't use.

Running Linux on a USB is running in RAM, so might still be a HDD problem.

See also Explorer Slow on Windows 7 and try those suggestions on Indexing.

I don't use windows anymore. But I remember when I used to it slow down to a crawl. The culprit was I had two antivirus programs and one malware program running. These programs are memory hogs and I did improve the system speed a bit by uninstalling one of them. Anyway, that was then...

1. MyDefrag, I have not tried. But I have found no problems with Defraggler.
2. IE is faster, but is extremely slow compared to Google Chrome.
3. Yes, remove the crapware from OEM installations.
4. HDD is the #2 problem for slow computers, weak CPU's are #1.