Hey, guys.
I changed some settings to make it run at an acceptable rate.
If anyone is searching the forum and finds this thread and has a similar set up, specification-wise, then hopefully the following will help.
1: In the Windows Search Box under start type "SystemPropertiesPerformance" and hit Enter. Under the Visual Effects tab hit "Adjust for Best Performance".
2: In Control Panel hit "Classical view" in the left sidebar and double click on "Personalisation" and hit "Display Settings". Alternatively, right-click on the Desktop and hit "Personalisation" at the bottom of the drop-down menu. Then lower your resolution.
My laptop has some intel chipset graphics card and so the default resolution of 1280x1024 was a definate no-no. I lowered it to 1024x768. I could have lowered it further to 800x600 but I'm used to 1024x768 on my old HP Desktop and it suited me fine, anyway.
Press "Apply" and select "Yes" when it asks if you want to keep these settings.
3: In the aforementioned Windows Search box in the start menu type "msconfig".
Select "Selective Startup" in the "General" tab and in the "Startup" tab select "Disable All". Then in the "Services tab" check "Hide all Microsoft Services" and uncheck the boxes of all the services that are left when the Microsoft Services are hidden. Press Apply and if a prompt comes up suggesting you Restart just press "Restart Later".
Finally Under the "Tools" tab select "Disable UAC" (User Account Control) and press Launch. If the prompt comes up again press "Restart". If not, just manually restart your laptop via the Start menu.
When you are done with the restart select the box at the bottom left of the window that comes up telling you you have performed a Selective Startup. This will shut it up so it doesn't appear everytime you start windows.
If you are missing several programs that would usually start up that you miss, either tell it to startup when Windows logs on via the program's internal Settings/Options/Preferences, or by editing the "System Configuration"(msconfig) "Startup" and "Services" tabs. Get to it by the previously mentioned method of searching for "msconfig" in the Start Menu.
Anyways, that's what I did. Pretty simple stuff but it worked. While 350MB of my 502MB of RAM is still being hogged by Vista and the annoying things that came with my laptop like Norton Antivirus it starts alot faster and smoother. I think I am going to uninstall Norton as well and get AVG Free Edition.
Download url for AVG Free Edition v7.5 (RootKit Remover, Anti-Virus and Spyware programs):
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/5390/us/frt/0
Some questions I would like to ask you guys.
The guy who sold it to me said to turn on "Indexing". Is this done through the "Computer -> C:/ -> Properties" window or is it done in the "Control Panel -> Index Options" window? Either way could some please explain how to "turn it on"?
He also mentioned IP6. I googled IP6 and I found some called IPv6 for Windows Vista. Did he mean to install it or turn it on or off? If you know the answers to either of these questions it would be cool if you could help me. The laptop still isn't too fast.