If You Have to Buy a Pre-packaged Windows 7 PC…

Back in September my grandfather called me because he wanted to let me know that his HP laptop has just been pronounced dead and that he was in the market for a new laptop. A friend of his, who does his computer troubleshooting since I live on the other end of the country, suggested that he should buy an HP. This friend of his went to HP’s website and put together a laptop package for his computing needs (word processing, heavy Powerpoint, web browsing, picture editing, creating posters and cards via Print Shop). All of this was done before consulting me, which is normally no big deal. However, this friend of his had never heard of Windows 7 and was unaware that it was soon to be released and was leaps and bounds better than Vista.

My immediate response was to find out if it could be returned, which it could not. My grandfather did not want to shell out all kinds of money for the new laptop and then shell out even more for a clean install of Windows 7, so I hesitantly suggested that he find out if he qualified for a free Windows 7 upgrade, which he did.

Fast-forward a month and he has upgraded the laptop to Windows 7 himself, with no issues, and is calling me to complain that it moves even slower than it did with Vista. He was suprised because I had been raving about the performance boost and the general stability of Windows 7 just weeks earlier, now he was experiencing just the opposite. My mind jumped around and considered many reasons on why his PC would be slow:

1. The fact that is was an OS upgrade might be causing the PC to drag.
2. Maybe they had built a PC with less than capable hardware for full Windows 7 features.
3. Perhaps the PC was littered with pre-installed software.
4. Maybe the PC protection software was slowing things down.
5. His startup might be cluttered with too many startup applications.

When I flew up to Pennsylvania for Christmas, my grandfather came along with his new Windows 7 laptop. Needless to say, it didn’t take long for me to figure out the issue or issues. His main problem was the startup programs that HP had running followed by a whole lot of pre-installed programs that were completely unnecessary. The hardware was more than adequate, but when most of the above issues combined it proved to be the perfect storm for slowing down a PC. I cleared up a few of these issues and his laptop was booting from power-on to ready-to-use desktop in less than 45 seconds and seemed to be very responsive.

I’m telling this story because it is situations just like this that can give Windows 7 a bad reputation, when in fact, it is really just the manufacturers which sometimes  cripple a perfectly useable PC with too many unnecessary programs. So, if you have to buy a pre-packaged PC, keep a few things in mind:

• Minimum Windows 7 system requirements
• If at all possible, avoid buying a PC that will need an upgrade to Windows 7. Opt for one with Windows 7 pre-installed.
• Find a computer built to handle the tasks you often do.
• Find Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel and remove unwanted software and trials. (John gives instructions here)
• For help on disabling startup programs, read this.
• Check your protection software to be sure performance isn’t being hindered by constantly running protection.

I realize that this is pretty basic stuff, but there are definitely users out there who could probably find this information useful. If you have any questions or need help regarding your copy of Windows 7, never hesitate to check out our Windows7forums.