Vista ridiculously slow - need advice

[TheRealMrGrey]

Ok, so my wife has been telling me for a while that her laptop (running Vista) was slow, and I finally got around to looking at it. She is not kidding, often you type something and the letters do not show up for 1-2 seconds. Something very strange is going on, but she's got so much bloatware, and I have so little experience with Vista (having only used XP myself waiting for Win 7) that I'm not sure it is worth figuring out what is wrong.

It is not the usual nonsense - searched for viruses, none found. She has plenty of RAM to run Vista Home - 3 GB. She defrags the computer often, etc. Friends have suggested to me that it is two services that are conflicting with each other, but she has like 50 services, and I don't even know what the difference between a "service" and a "process" is. In XP, you just have processes.

So, my question is, if I buy a Win 7 upgrade, will it overwrite most of this nonsense? Or will it leave all the services intact? What about my wife's other programs, such as Office and iTunes? My current ideas for a solution are:

1. Buy Win 7 upgrade, hope it solves the problem - perhaps then will have to troubleshoot after upgrade if it doesn't work.

2. Buy Win 7 retail, wipe drive and reinstall.

3. Buy Win XP retail, wipe drive and reinstall.

4. Spend countless hours trying to troubleshoot Vista (having no experience with it), then buy Win 7 upgrade.

Suggestions?

Oh - the laptop is a Dell Inspiron 1420. Does anyone know whether the Dell software is necessary? Thanks.

 

[TheRealMrGrey]

Something important I left out: she is not bottle-necking her RAM usage. She has 1 GB free virtual memory, so it isn't slow due to too many programs in background.

 

[mpilchfamily]

Back up any and all important files. Buy an upgrade copy of Win7 and then go to the super site for windows to see how to perform a clean install with the upgrade disk. This will be sure to wipe the dirve clean and leave you with a nice fresh install of Win7 without the blote ware that is currently respocible for slowing the system down.
http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/clean_install_upgrade_media.asp

But it would be much cheaper to go threw the system and unistall each and every application that isn't needed. This will at least reduce the amount of bloat ware and background prossess that are running.

 

[theevilsharpie]

Vista and 7 are very similar, so unless you intend to format the drive and install a fresh copy of 7, chances are that upgrading won't resolve the performance problem.

A delay like that indicates that the CPU is bogged down. Check to make sure that there isn't a process monopolizing all of the CPU time on the system. I've found that a print job that gets "stuck" in a virtual printer queue can cause this behavior.

If you're dead set in upgrading to 7, make sure that the laptop has drivers for it, and then purchase the retail copy.

 

[tcsenter]

I recently worked on an HP Media Center tower with good specs (Athlon X2 6000+, 3GB RAM, GeForce 8500GT, 2 x 500GB SATA 3.0 Gbps drives) that shipped with Vista preinstalled.

I previously did all the maintenance that could be done; ran disk check with surface scan and file system repair, defragged, cleaned up all temp directories/files, removed a few unwanted programs, scanned for viruses/malware (none were found), updated drivers, patched Windows with the latest updates. It still had laggy issues when launching apps, even GUI stuff like dragging and dropping icons would have a big lag or delay.

So finally I wiped the SOB and clean installed Vista OEM from my System Builder disc (I used Vista Activation Backup and Restore to preserve the OEM activation). Installed the latest drivers, only the apps and utilities the owner actually wanted/used, updated all apps and Windows with the latest patches.

The owner said it was like a brand new computer, it runs better now than it ever has including the day they bought it.

 

[The Merg]

If you do decide to go through and remove/uninstall the bloatware, I would recommend using RevoUninstaller. It is a freeware app and works very well. Along with using the applications uninstaller, it then searches the computer for registry entries and files left behind and removes those too.

- Merg

 

[TheRealMrGrey]

Thanks for the advice. In terms of getting Win 7, I am building a system soon and will need to buy it anyway. Am I correct that the full retail version of Win 7 (not OEM) can be installed on multiple machines? I might just wipe the drive and reinstall Win 7.

I expect I need to check the Dell website to find out whether the 1420 can run Win 7?

Edit: I'm going to run some advanced diagnostics to determine what program is using the resources. Will post it when I figure it out.

 

[TheRealMrGrey]

Ok, other than no support (which I've never used), the difference between OEM and Retail is that the OEM key is tied to a motherboard. You still need to buy multiple discs for multiple computers. Now I see why everyone hates MS.

But wait, what if that motherboard dies? That doesn't seem fair - MBs die all the time. Surely you can change MBs if one dies. Does anyone know the answer?

Thanks.

 

[theevilsharpie]

You can change your motherboard without problems as long as it's a direct replacement and not an upgrade.

 

[Intexity]

hmmm..ok this is where i may get in trouble. i have used bittorrent to download oem versions of name brand computer OS's for years (mostly xp). If you own the computer there is no reason you shouldn't have free access to the OS that came with the computer. customers come to me looking for a reinstall of the original OS on their computer for whatever reasons. and i don't think its fair for them to pay exhorbitant rates for software they have already purchased. but thats up to you.
as far as purchasing windows 7 you need to buy a copy with multiple license's in order to install on multiple computers. OEM is the release sent to builders that is SUPPOSED to only be good for the current configuration meaning if you upgrade components it won't work. but i bought oem and upgraded my gpu and ram and was able to update my license (XP) (at least i think im remembering right) retail is good for your computer with any upgrades supposedly. but since its tied to the mobo (i would think stretching here) if you replace the mobo not sure if it would work. hope this helps. maybe someone who knows more on licensing will step up.

 

[TheRealMrGrey]

Thanks for the opinions - note, also, that it is interesting that the OEM Win 7 is less than the Win 7 upgrade on newegg.

 

[The Merg]

hmmm..ok this is where i may get in trouble. i have used bittorrent to download oem versions of name brand computer OS's for years (mostly xp). If you own the computer there is no reason you shouldn't have free access to the OS that came with the computer. customers come to me looking for a reinstall of the original OS on their computer for whatever reasons. and i don't think its fair for them to pay exhorbitant rates for software they have already purchased. but thats up to you.
as far as purchasing windows 7 you need to buy a copy with multiple license's in order to install on multiple computers. OEM is the release sent to builders that is SUPPOSED to only be good for the current configuration meaning if you upgrade components it won't work. but i bought oem and upgraded my gpu and ram and was able to update my license (XP) (at least i think im remembering right) retail is good for your computer with any upgrades supposedly. but since its tied to the mobo (i would think stretching here) if you replace the mobo not sure if it would work. hope this helps. maybe someone who knows more on licensing will step up.

With an OEM version of the OS, you can make changes to your hardware without requiring a new license. Along with the OEM version being married to the motherboard, which really isn't a true statement, an OEM version is not supported by Microsoft. As for it being married to the motherboard, the software looks for major/many changes to the hardware from when it was first installed. Since replacing the motherboard is about as extreme of a change you can have, it product key will generally not work with the new motherboard.

- Merg