Windows 7 has made fast Computer almost unusable

Hey everyone. I just recently made the upgrade from Windows Vista 64bit to Windows 7 64bit. I went with the student upgrade deal, and downloaded the installer from Digital River. My install with through 4 of the 5 steps, and hung infinitely at 42% (I hear that is a very common problem with people getting it from DR). I reverted back to Vista, uninstalled some stuff and tried again. The same problem happened.

Luckily, I had versions purchased directly from Microsoft, albeit under different Keys. Since I had my own, I just downloaded the 64bit iso, and used my own key when prompted. To install that version, I mounted the iso on a virtual drive. Everything seemed to go off without a hitch. Or so I thought.

Now my computer takes roughly 5 minutes to boot - sometimes longer, and sometimes it just has my background without the actual explorer showing up. When I download files to the desktop the files take around 20 minutes to show up, even though the search bar says its in the desktop folder. Programs take absurdly long times to load, and even internet pages have problems loading to completion.

I defragmented my HDD, which took over 24 hours. I ran a memory test. I burned my installer iso, booted from it, and tried to repair windows. I've used a tune-up utility to help with the speed. Nothing has worked.

So my question is - what should I do? Also, is it possible to fix the problem without having to format my HDD? I have an upgrade version of Win7, so I'm not sure if I could load windows 7 without having vista installed. Do I have to format, reinstall vista, and then upgrade, with the potential problem returning? So far, I'm pretty upset with both Microsoft, Gateway (my PC), and Digital River. My system Specs are in my profile, but if anyone needs me to post them in this thread I can. I really hope someone can help me out here, because my PC went from very fast to almost unusable. Thanks in advance for your time.

Sounds like a clean install is in order. You can clean install from the Windows 7 upgrade media without having Vista installed on the computer.

The experiences that you are seeing are not what the rest of us are seeing. My experience has been very solid.

The "upgrade" ISO you downloaded works fine as a boot disk. Pop it in and reinstall if you aren't worried about reinstalling programs and transfering your files back.

I do have to suggest making sure all your drivers are up to date with Driver Max before you wipe everything again but thats up to you.

Driver Max is junk. Clean format is in order.

Man, this is the second time I've had to format my HDD in the past month, and the third time in the past 3 or so. My last HDD died (Seagate Barracuda - Never buy it for any reason). I guess I'll back all my files up and get prepared for a long and boring weekend - unless anyone else has some ideas?

When I installed from the iso, I mounted it onto a virtual drive using PowerISO. As for the utility, its simply called "TuneUp Utilities". I'm thinking maybe the mounting of the iso might have been a problem.

You do not need any tuneup utility with properly installed Win7. This is the issue.

Burn the confirmed ISO to disk using ImgBurn at 4X with Verify. It never fails.

Boot from the installer, use Advanced tools to delete everything, create what partition(s) you want, format and install.

Let us know how it goes. 64 bit is a bit more dicey than 32, but the latest drivers are normally in the installer or arrive in Windows Updates quickly.