Windows 7: Help win 7 x64 running extremely slow suddenly.

This is the second time my computer has started doing this, last time I had to do a clean install to fix the problem. Here is the problem. I have win 7 x64 on my laptop and it has been running fantastic for several weeks now. But all of the sudden it has just become unbareably slow and unmost completly unresponsive. I can hardly do anything on it it is so slow. It is not my laptop, which is still quite new and fairly fast. I have 32bit on my desktop which is much older and it runs fine. The only recent changes I have made is installing the latest updates for office 2007, and installing PS3media server with Java runtime. I can boot to safe mode and it runs fine and is not slow at all. I tried to restore to the restore point before installing office 2007 updates but it fails to complete. I was able to uninstall Java after taking almost an hour to open control panel and everything. Now i am trying to completly uninstall office to see if that fixes it, but I have a feeling it will take all day or more. This is the second time it has done this, both times I installed win 7 it ran really great for a few weeks than its just dead like it hit a brick wall. Anyone have any ideas what could be causing the problem?? Thanks

You might start by opening task manager and see what process is taking up your resources ....

I've checked and it all looks perfectly normal. RAM usage is what it always is, about 20-22% with 4gb installed. CPU usage is normal too, it stays low even when its trying to open stuff and do everything. Thats whats strange. It seems like everything is just fine and how it should be, but it just crawls whenever I try to do something.

Office 2007 finished unistalling and I restarted and it is still extremely slow. I read a couple other threads on here and someone said something about running sfc /scannow, so I am running that right now. Of course it is going extremly slow too. Anyone else go any other ideas??

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Download a better process viewer, such as Process Hacker or Process Monitor, and you will be able to see what is tying up the CPU. The windows 7 task manager does not show all running processes. These two are freeware - just Google for them.

I'll give one of those a try, if i can even get one installed. It takes a couple minutes just to open the windows task manager. I've got a process monitor gadget on my desktop and it showing very minimal process usage between both cores. Only 2-5% on each core.

How about a system restore?

I tried to with the restore point before i installed updates for office 2007, which was the last thing i did before it started running slow, but it would fail and not finish the restore every time i tried it.

What anti virus do you use?

avast.