Slow Laptop - Windows 7

[iloveglee]

I am having some problems with my laptop running very slow, some programmes will barely run at all. there are some processes which are devouring huge amounts of memory but I have no clue whether they are essential or whether I can close them. the virus, spyware, rootkit scans are showing nothing. each time I have windows updates, it gets worse. not quite sure what to do. an option is to restore back to factory settings which I have done before when I got a rootkit, but I have a lot of music in my iTunes, which were loaded from cd's. last time I lost all those and cant face having to reload them all again. any ideas techies out there.

[SlackAlice]

Details of the laptop and how much memory fitted?

How much unused space left on the HDD?

[alavahalf]

Why don't you get an external hard drive and move your music across to it, just to start with. They are so cheap, they are almost giving them away at the moment.
Move everything else you want to save across as well.
Then if you do decide to do a reset to factory settings, at least your music will be safe.
I've just fitted a new hard drive and windows 7. You do get loads of updates, but they don't really cause an issue because you just let them download when you are switching your system off.

[Quoi]

what processes are using the most cpu time. I have a toshiba with w7 and there are a few utilities processes that seem to use lots of cpu.
I usually look up the heavy using processes on t'internet to see if I can close them.
I also use hijack this for tidying.
Is your disc fragmented?

[ivor4781]

try cc cleaner (free)
the best way to get things like new again is to do what alavhalf said transfer (back up) all your files you want to keep on separate external hard drive then reinstall the OS then put ya files back on after,if you have a large hard drive split it in to two partitions after a reinstall and keep all your music/photos / videos and docs on the other partition ive done that for decades

[iloveglee]

the hard drive has plenty of space, I think its the ram memory that's affected. some memory heavy programmes like google earth simply will not work properly, I cant get street view at all. there are things like iexplore.exe multiple ones of that, taskhost.exe loads of those, but in task manager, processes show anything between 1% and 50%, physical memory shows usually around 40 to 50%. not sure how to get the stuff in I-tunes onto an external hard drive, I find I-tunes very confusing and difficult to manage. i restored back to factory setting before, obviously i-tunes went, and when i re-downloaded it, all the music was gone

[ivor4781]

if you paid i tunes for your music it will be there to download again free from itunes

[iloveglee]

most of the music in my iTunes had been loaded into there from my own cd's via the dvd drive on the laptop. the odd song I had bought were still there but that was all

[SlackAlice]

Please answer my 20:43 post.

I have a suspicion you have too many processes/programs starting up with Windows. Type msconfig into your Windows search box and click on msconfig.exe which comes up in the results, to see what starts up and see if you can reduce the list.

http://netsquirrel.com/msconfig/msconfig_win7.html

[iloveglee]

im pretty sure also there are too many processes starting up. the problem is I don't know what needs to start up and what I could do without, am nervous to shut stuff down in case I cause any problems.

[iloveglee]

have clicked on the link and will have a look at the further link about necessary applications when I have some time - looks like there are thousands to wade through. windows - yeuch. next time it will be a mac air -please don't tell me the problems will be just the same!!!