Windows 7: Windows 7 lagging badly and very slow

Hi guys. I'm new to this forum and to Win 7.
Finally updated my 6 year old Acer Aspire laptop (AMD turon 64 x 2, 2 Gig ram, XP Media Centre) with a HP DV7-5005TX (I7-2720 2.2g, 8 gig DDR3, ATI Radeon HD6570 Graphics with 1 gig Ram & 2TB HD).
It was preloaded with Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit which installed without a hitch.
I then installed all Windows updates and some necessary programs (Firefox, Thunderbird, Cad, Graphic design, Office 2007, ZoneAlarm, AVG) and tried it out. - Painfully slow in all areas like it had to consider everything I asked of it B4 it would start reacting.
Did a registry clean & fix, defrag - a little better but not much.
Tried a change of antivirus (incase that was slowing it up) - No better.
Installed Winoptimiser 8 and set everything for peak performance which improved things a little further bit still not great - My old Acer still runs rings around this thing!
It boots up in ok time but the actual operations are 'jagged', like when typing in browser display stalls for a few seconds then catches up. Scrolling down a window does the same. Some basic programs can take half a minute to even open a window, let alone set up.
Surely Win 7 can't be this slow and painfull. What am I missing?
Cheers for any help.
Mut

Hello Welcome To SevenForums
=>~This My Opinion~<=
1.Please Just Install One AV Because they are fighting each other for their Real Time Shields. But I Suggest To Install MSE ( Microsoft Security Essential ) or Just Uninstall Your AVG Because I used ZoneAlarm For A year and it's cool.
2. This Is My Suggestion Too Use ASC ( Advance System Care ) I Used It Until Now And It is Good In Tweaking.
3. Please Change Your Motherboard If Possible Because your motherboard might not supporting your new
Hardwares

That's All Thank You . Please Add Some Rep Those Who Help You

Hi Mut,

Welcome. You mentioned that Windows 7 was pre-installed..............if so, then it sounds liked a bloated installation (all the OEM software included as part of the installation : collectively referred to as crap-ware or bloat-ware) which can be very slow.

My suggestions:
1. AV : use MSE
2. Uninstall and never again use any 3rd party optimizers - Windows 7 doesn't need it like XP did

Finally, please read this:

Clean Up Factory Bloatware
Clean Install : Factory COA Activation Key

and then also give this a thought:

Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7

I guarantee this will significantly improve your Windows 7 experience.

Regards,
Golden

ON that system specs i think nothing should slow it down ( even two antiviruses or any software)
I think the windows you installed is having some problem ......

UPDATE THE DRIVERS AS A LAST TRY ....................................IF THAT DOESN'T WORK THEN GO FOR THE NEW WINDOWS

Thanks for the suggestions guys.
Just to clarify, - I did uninstall AVG before installing AV component of Zone Alarm. I learnt that lesson the hard way many years ago :-(
Golden - I'll definately give those tutorials a read and try them. Cheers
I'll also get rid of the Winoptimizer as the gain wasn't that much anyway. Might try the ASC Paulo mentioned.
I also noted alot of complaints elsewhere regarding the boot up time of Win 7.....Strange, that's the only thing this one does quickly so far......
Thanks again, Mut

I don't recommend it - its just another so-called optimizer that Windows 7 does not need. Its not worth the code its written with.

Post back if you need more help.

ZoneAlarm may be the 'culprit'.
Uninstall ZA:
http://download.zonealarm.com/bin/free/support/download/clean.exe

You are using some of the worst crapware we see here. What did you use to clean the registry? Most registry cleaners are sales scams which ruin Windows 7.

I'd start over following the Best Practices and tools to obtain and maintain a perfect Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7

Windows 7 is not slow unless the owner/operator tweaks it and makes it slow.
Any computer can be made slow with the wrong settings done by tweaking and the wrong programs. If one takes the time to read through the many post here slowness of Windows 7 normally comes down to snake oil (ASC and the like) programs and tweaking by the owner/operator. Once someone gets Windows 7 the XP brain cells should be turned off. Them tweaking days are gone with Windows 7. It's time to develop new Windows 7 brain cells. Because Windows 7 is made for millions of different people all over the world there/their are some thing you can do to make it suit the person a little better. Windows 7 Forum and it's Tutorials have many ways to do things to Windows 7 without hurting or slowing down your system. Spend less time on those smarter than Microsoft we can do it better sites. Spend more time here and one will learn Windows 7 and enjoy it.

Layback Bear. I understand where you're coming from but if you reread my original post You'll see it was a problem from the start. The 'tweaking' was done down the track in an attempt to get it to work at all, not to better Microsoft's thinking.
I didn't mention in the first post, but I reset the laptop to original status when I first found it so slow and then did a clean reinstall - no difference at all. Then I started looking elsewhere.
There is a problem somewhere, probably just with my preloaded windows or install, but it wasn't my 'tweaking' that turned it to treacle.
Mut