Fresh install Windows going pear-shaped

[swee'pea99]

I finally decided to take the plunge and reinstall Win 7 on my 8 year old laptop, which has been getting steadily slower & flakier for some time.

It all seemed to go well, and I added a copy of Windows Office I got from ebay for a few quid, and a couple of other bits & bobs and....it's like wading thru' treacle. Every command takes seconds to get a response...I can't even get Chrome to start up properly (I get 'not responding' every time)...I open Task Manager and look down the CPU column, and everything is at 00, with the occasional blip of 01 or 02, then back to 00. Meanwhile at the bottom it says CPU: 33%....24%....51%....

Does anyone have any idea what's occurring? Any suggestions and advice very much appreciated.

 

[dodgy]

Sounds like it might be building the initial search index, you can disable that to see if it helps.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

It's infected by that stuff you got off eBay

 

[swee'pea99]

It's infected by that stuff you got off eBay

A cheery thought!

I think I may have cracked it. I put the 64 bit version of Windows on it, but I think it actually needs the 32 bit version. (It only has 3gb of RAM.) I'm downloading another virus-riddled setup file from MS, so let's see how that goes.

Thanks.

 

[ColinJ]

I put Win 7 on my 10 year old Dell. It works fine most of the time but occasionally it does that treacle thing. It turned out to be something running in the background to check system files. I can't remember the name of it, but I found it by running one of my system monitoring tools (I have a choice of Process Explorer, Process Monitor and Process Hacker 2).

I kept meaning to find a fix for it but it doesn't happen that often so I never got round to it.

 

[swee'pea99]

Well, 32 bit installed and so far so good. Only time will tell, but I think that's it done.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

You know Linux is your friend you just don't want to admit it

 

[swee'pea99]

You know Linux is your friend you just don't want to admit it

I am playing with the idea of installing Ubuntu as well and seeing which one I actually end up using.

But so far I'm really chuffed. Re-installing Windows has made such a big difference. I'd accumulated so much crap over eight years. It feels so much nimbler and speedier. It's a joy to use.

 

[LeetleGreyCells]

I installed Linux Mint two weeks ago and I’m loving it. Very fast, responsive and user-friendly. Recommended. In fact I haven’t booted up Windows since I installed Linux. No need.