I suggested having a good look at "Resource Monitor" early on in the thread. I also find Process Explorer a particularly useful utility from - Windows sysinternals, Microsoft Technet.
The usual click on column heading will rank prioritize to see for example what is dominating CPU usage.
Here's another shot. Try CHKDSK on your drive. If there's something wrong with the bits and bytes, your system would keep re-reading them, thus resulting in HD thrashing and overall "slowdown." It happened to me sometimes before, especially when I was using the Windows Explorer.
Work through these troubleshooting steps which should uncover the problem, starting particularly with the clean boot.
Why would you think you need to pay $100 to get an install disk? You own the license on that computer for life, to reinstall as often and in whatever way you want. You only need to find any Win7 retail installer -borrow, download from official site, etc - to clean reinstall with the Product Key on COA sticker. This is the first thing many tech enthusiasts do with a new computer.
Here are tips to get a perfect reinstall when the time comes: Reinstalling Windows 7
You can also run full Factory Recovery from its partition or disks you make (make them now) then clean it up as best you can although this is inferior to clean reinstalling: Clean up factory bloatware
Ask back any questions.
I've done all I needed to do, and as I said, the only time the comp actually slows down is when windows media player is opened. I havent used it in over a week and the computer has been great. Is there a way to reinstall windows media player?
Unfortunately WMP is a feature which can only be hidden (not uninstalled) in Control Panel>Programs and Features.
But the problem with WMP is often the Sharing Service which can hog CPU cycles. One solution is to try Disabling it. Type services.msc in Start Search box, then browse to WMP Sharing Service, double click on it and Disable. Reboot, open WMP to see if problem persists.
It once had the ability to turn itself back on because it was persistent spyware, but I dont' think it can do that any longer - someone else may know for sure. At that time there was a batch command which could be run to permanently disable it.
Well I tried that and it didn't fix it... I'm also sick of using iTunes. Especially when I have to close it 6 times because it likes to reopen itself all the time.. Dang.
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