Windows 7 almost unresponsive, I've taken these steps so far;

Greetings, and thanks in advance for all advice. In the past 2 or 3 weeks Win7 has slowed down during use, boot up, when open programs, installations, and every other point it can.

So far I've attempted the following to try and diagnose the problem to no avail: Tried to rollback to before the problem started, but I could not. Even though Windows had been claiming to set restore points when I updated every month or so, the only ones available were from 2 days ago. Ran a deep search of AVG, nothing. Uninstalled all programs from the last month or so to a point when things were running smoothly. None of this helped, I was trying to avoid a total reinstall of Win7, I don't even think I created the Win7 CD's that Dell suggest you burn as backup when you buy a laptop.

Not sure what to try next, thanks again for any help.

Hello Skyhook and welcome to Seven Forums.

In addition to running malware scans, you could also try deleting unnecessary files on your hard disk to free up disk space and help your computer run faster.

Disk Cleanup - Open and Use

You could also check for any damaged or corrupt system files by running a system file checker scan from an elevated command prompt (option two.) If problems are found, run the scan 3 times and immediately reboot the computer after each scan.

SFC /SCANNOW Command - System File Checker

If you're still having issues you can check to see if any installed programs or apps are having conflicts. Run a clean startup (AKA: clean boot.)

Troubleshoot Application Conflicts by Performing a Clean Startup

It may not be too late to burn those Dell Recovery Disks. Your Inspiron probably has a hidden recovery partition on the hard drive which could be used to return your computer to factory specs. When recovery disks are made they usually use the data from the hidden recovery partition. If you ever need to restore your machine to factory specs, you'd use the recovery partition if the computer boots, or the disks if the computer no longer boots. You could open Disk Management to see if your machine has that recovery partition. If you're not sure you could post a screenshot of your Disk Management.

Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image

Thanks for the ideas, I will get to work and post my report afterwards.

SuperAntiSpyware is another great program to try out as well.

Windows Defender Offline can also help detect a few potential problems

Skyhook said:

Greetings, and thanks in advance for all advice. In the past 2 or 3 weeks Win7 has slowed down during use, boot up, when open programs, installations, and every other point it can.

So far I've attempted the following to try and diagnose the problem to no avail: Tried to rollback to before the problem started, but I could not. Even though Windows had been claiming to set restore points when I updated every month or so, the only ones available were from 2 days ago. Ran a deep search of AVG, nothing. Uninstalled all programs from the last month or so to a point when things were running smoothly. None of this helped, I was trying to avoid a total reinstall of Win7, I don't even think I created the Win7 CD's that Dell suggest you burn as backup when you buy a laptop.

Not sure what to try next, thanks again for any help.

Also depending on the size of your storage capacity, windows will kick out the old restore points for newer ones as well, so you may have lost a few restore points from this fashion. Here's a link to info about changing that setting:

System Protection - Change Disk Space Usage

I gave up on AVG and went to AVAST and have been very impressed. Each to their own of course, but you can also post up a pic of your Task manager performance tab and resource monitor as well to let some of the gurus see if bottle-necking is occuring or at least what is causing potential slow downs.

Ok so here's how things have been progressing; MalWareBytes found nothing, computer has plenty of free space but I did a spring cleaning anyway, which felt pretty good. After a lengthy system file check it found no integrity violations, so went through the clean start up steps to deduce if there was a conflicting program.

I started with all programs shut off during boot, computer was back to being normal. I then slowly added start up tasks till I was back to normal and now it still working fine. Hmm...

This leads me to conclude the problem is the cloud back up program CrashPlan, which I have been using almost a month. When I first installed it things were smooth but I believe over time it has bogged down the system. I will go back to using it now that my computer is working and see if it slows down over time and then I will know for sure. Thanks for the great advice.

Glad to hear your computer is working again. Here's hoping this was just a small glitch that won't repeat itself. Nice detective work and thanks for posting back.

You don't need anything to start with Windows besides your AV and any sync, gadgets or messenger you must have on the desktop when you start Win7. All others are freeloaders which waste resources and spy on you. I'd establish and maintain a Clean Boot as shown in Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7.

Also no one here has ever recommended AVG which bloated up before Win7 was even born and never slimmed back down. I would use Microsoft Security Essentials for best performance.