Windows 7 - Please help me understand a perf issue

I have installed Windows 7 build 7000 thrice,

twice with virtualPC on my main PC (dual core 2.61 GHz, 2Gb RAM)
and one on an old-ish laptop (1.73 Ghz, 1.5GB RAM)

Each time it has been PAINFULLY slow, booting up seems quick enough but general performance is horrible. Both these machines run Vista screaming fast so I'd assume they are upto the challenge, I've tried disabling all the visuals just incase that's the issue but no luck. What's going on?

Any help is appreciated, thanks ^_^

I understand you're having problems with the performance of Windows 7 on both a desktop PC as well as a laptop.

Your specifications seem to be more than accommodating for running Windows 7 on the desktop PC, but I can't speak for the laptop.

You say that bootup seems quick, but 'general performance' is not up to par - and that both machines run Vista just fine. So, is there anything different between the setups?

Have you tried to install Windows 7 on a clean HDD from a fresh format? If not, that would be my first route - at least you can narrow down any performance issues to the OS or the actual install this way.

Just out of curiosity, do both machines even support Aero? (you failed to tell us what GPU either machine is running)

While disabling visual effects should increase performance a bit, there are many, many other things to troubleshoot before giving up on Windows 7.

I would start by installing Windows 7 on a clean, formatted HDD directly from a disk or USB stick to eliminate anything that the virtualPC may be doing to it. Following that up, I would check that all your motherboard's chipset, GPU and SATA/IDE drivers are updated via Windows Update or better yet, directly from the manufacturer's websites.

In my opinion, Windows 7 is much faster than Vista just for the simple fact that a dozen or more services don't automagically run like they did in Vista, let alone the fact that most services are set on Manual rather than Auto now, so I doubt highly that it's anything running in the background that's dragging your performance down...it's more than likely something in the install itself.

Good luck!

Psychlone