Creating Restore Point and Monthly Patches now take a long time

Hello debodun yes mate 40 minutes is certainly a long time depending on the size of those downloads of course.
Your system however is probably slow because of the CPU clock speed and amount of RAM you have installed -have you considered upping the RAM to say 4GB??

It could also be that you are running a lot of processes normally too so check in the Task Manager to see what is running because whatever you load at boot is using up RAM. see pic oh and scroll down that listing.

Hmm not much out of the ordinary there that I can see the firefox chews up a far bit of RAM but most browsers to em at least do that.

Now from the specs I mentioned the clock speed of the CPU and the RAM do you know what the speed of that RAM is not that I think it is that slowing down the machine but because it is an older type of RAM (DDR2)

I am thinking maybe upping that to 4GB and a higher speed RAM stick (there are three speeds it can be) or better still 2x2GB sticks because it then uses both the RAM channels. The speed of your RAM can be found using this Speccy - Free Download - Piriform < in the first summary screen see pic

Now before I go rambling on further can you look to see if the motherboard in your machine is like the one in the attached pic. I ask because if it is then there are quite a few things that can be changed on the board to make it really much quicker than it is now.

But I do digress a bit before anything else can you run these please
SFC /SCANNOW Command - System File Checker
Disk Check < if necessary include the /f switch and if this does not make any improvement then just run this switch instead /r in the command line as per Option2
Run these in safe mode and the sfc often best run for two to three runs – you can leave out the /r switch in ckdsk if you feel it not necessary

if no fix then these

SUPERAntiSpyware | Remove Malware | Remove Spyware - AntiMalware, AntiSpyware, AntiAdware!
Malwarebytes | Malwarebytes Premium
AdwCleaner Download
ADW download from bleeping computer delete any rubbish found with the malware scans
(NB If you are running Kaspersky as the main AV then it might need disabling it when trying ADW because it does not like it at times)

Folks with these system spec's it doesn't take much to bring the system to it's knees.

System Manufacturer/Model Number custom built
OS Windows 7 Ultimate x64
CPU 1.86 GHz Intrel Core 2
Memory 3 GB

Jack

Yep Jack and Sky Ranch if the board is the one I Googled up it can support a decent Pentium and PC2-5300 RAM, and I would think a SSD would make the world of difference too.

Thing is it is the OP's choice and budget of course.

Some of the suggestions I am not comfortable with doing. I don't even know how to open the tower. I have MalwareBytes. I had SuperAntiSpyware at one time but was I was finding it was deleting important things, so I uninstalled it. I DO appreciate your advice, though. Thank you.

Here's what Speccy indicated:

Ok I see it is a pity you are not happy to open the case because now I am thinking if the case has never been opened in five years it is probably chock full of dust and crud.
Just so that you know the case is accessible by unscrewing the two screws at the rear of the left hand side panel and then just sliding that panel backwards and it should just life away and unless there any fans in that side you don't have to do anything else. What you would see is the motherboard with all the components seated on it.
I have attached a couple of pics so that you can see what it is like and one that shows how mucky it can get and that is a mild case of crud. Just know that they are only for example and not exactly what is in your case. If you do decide to have a look best if you unplug from the mains supply and hold the on button for a few seconds first until you are comfortable with doing this.

So my suggestions of the Pentium (or maybe the E6700) CPU – the RAM is the fastest the board will support - is probably out shame because it is not a bad board even though it is probably of some vintage. I say that because my tester desktop is an older machine with DDR2 although I have to say I have a reasonably good CPU in it plus other stuff.

The SuperAntiSpyware I use all the time on a regular basis not that it finds much malware more that it clears the rubbish Adware out but it is your choice of course.

As an afterthought I also have to agree with Sky Rancher on the number of updates you are getting.

Now have you run those scans I linked a few posts back yet??

debodun said:

My computer looks nothing like the photo.

I take it you did see inside then? If so can you send a pic - the pic I sent was really just to give you an example and show where the side panel fixings were