Has your Win7 (32/64bit) install become slower over time?

Very curious about this as some have reported that their installed Win7 has slowed down over time. Meaning, it's not as fast or snappy as it was when it was first install (or when notebook first received).

There are those who claim that Win7 will slow down over time.

I haven't experienced this on SSD or HDD and I've been running Windows 7 64bit on all my notebooks sinc eit came out.

So I'm curious to know if that is the case with anyone and if so, I'd like to know what causes it and how one prevents it if it doesn't occur.

For myself, a few basic things followed which may have lead to smooth operation since installing Win7.

1. I don't cache webpages in Firefox and limit to 8MB in IE.
2. I defrag HDDs and let SSDs garbage collect and Trim
3. I run CCleaner every now and again to get rid of left over temp files and web cache from IE. Cookies also.
4. Simply running MSE (Microsoft Security Essentials) for malware defense.

 

My wife's notebook has been running W7 x64 essentially since the day the OS launched and I've not noticed any significant slowdown. Granted, she doesn't game or anything. Just basic surfing, e-mail, MS Office, etc. The system is far from quick, but it's not gotten any slower.

 

I have Win 7 Pro 64-bit on my machine.

1. My IE9b cache is set to 50MB (don't use FF)
2. I have not defragged my machine for now close to a year
3. I run Ccleaner frequently
4. I also run MSE and WF

I did do a clean install of the OS when I first got the machine. And, I have not noticed any slowdown of any sorts...yet!

I too have heard of Win OS slowing down over time. Don't remember how things felt on XP...it's been a while!

 

No slow down here.

Got my machine this time last year, did a clean install and it's been that way ever since.

I don't defrag, I don't clean the registry (nothing to clean in Win 7), I only occasionally empty the temp internet folders.

 

This is a realatively new install, but on my D620 I had the same install going for about a year, no slow down at all. Was running Firefox, used Ccleaner every so often and never defragged. This thing didn't slow down. Neither has my E6400... It's a week old. But still.

 

Nope. Maybe a tiny bit which is natural because you get more programs, startup items, etc. but nothing significant. Still very snappy and quick.

 

Nope, not really. Been running W7 64bit on my desktop for well over a year now and haven't noted any actual slowdowns. It's added a few seconds to boot, used to be 50 seconds flat, just now I timed 57, and I've noticed that every once in a while it takes a long time to shut down but I believe that's related to what applications I've been using during the session. That's it, the rest works pretty much the same as day one. I've left it with its default automatic defrag and I run CCleaner every two or three months.

 

nope win7 x64
the only maintenance tool i use is ccleaner nothing else

 

nope 15 copies of win7 X32 all installed over 14 mos ago
and Nope on win 7 X64 ... 31 copies most over 12 months from install. all in a business and/or graphics design environment ( AV and CAD/CAM )

 

The wife and I have both been running Windows 7 for over a year and there haven't been any noticeable slowdowns. I think the key is running CCleaner regularly, my old XP laptop from 2005 took about 2 minutes to boot and probably just as long to shut down when it finally stopped working in 2009, but at that point I didn't even know what CCleaner was. I don't think it's anything to do with XP, because my XP netbook (which I do run CCleaner on) hasn't gotten any slower, although "slower" is relative when we're talking about Atom performance.

 

Only people who install lots of stupid stuff that runs themselves on startup gets slowdowns.
Some even install 2 anti-virus and file sharing programs to run automatically on startup while running on Atom Processors AND they complain about slow downs.
Talk about stupid.
Simple analogy:
Can you run fast when carrying such a heavy bag?
To them computers doesn't run on logic, it runs on pixie dust...
Those guys whom I did a clean install for NEVER complain about slowdowns hence only stupid people gets it.
Anyway this is just marketing excuse for the OS X camp, after BSOD stop they have to find something mythical to pick on:
How registry slows Windows down despite Microsoft Virtualizing it.

 

I'm pretty sure that the OS slowdown over time phenomenon involves the computer illiterate people installing more and more things over time that run in the background and suck up CPU/RAM resources, as weinter mentioned. That, or they pick up viruses and malware.

I've never had any OS (Win2k onwards, OS X, Linux) slow down over time on me. Then again, I also know what processes are and what they do.

 

same here. The only thing that may slow things down over time are file system fragmentation and in microsoft's case, it registry.

I think that is yet another urban legend resulting in people periodically wanting to reinstall everything from scratch.

 

I'm running Win7 Ultimate. As for the speed & performance when it was bought until now, it's still snappy. However, my boot-times became relatively slower compared to when it was bought. Right after I entered my password, it takes like 2 mins before my desktop & icons are fully functional. I already unchecked some unused apps in msconfig, & tweaked shut down time in the registry. I also experience a 10secs lag time in opening IE9 after my desktop becomed fully-functi
onal.

 

While I cannot report any slowdown of the OS per se, but this slowing down of IE9 (and also Chrome 9) happens on my machine too. I have not done anything about it because I don't know what to do or for that matter what causes this slowdown on IE9 and Chrome. It's not that I have too many add-on - In IE9 I have 4 add ons and the same in Chrome.

 

I have to say sometime it is due to program patching, a version patch is not 100% reliable due to the different dlls and the executables a version patch sometimes doesn't patch cleanly.
For example when I update Zune from patches strange things start to occur over a period of time slow downs and program hangs.
The solution is to download the full installer binary and reinstall the program from scratch.
It is not so much of Windows fault instead it is more of patching programs not done properly.

 

Mine slowed only on start up. Takes a while for gadgets to load, something about 30sec after W7 had loaded. Otherwise still pretty damn fast considering 5400RPM hard drive. Defragment hard drives and run CCleaner from time to time, but haven't notice any big difference.

 

IE9 is still in beta, so you have to expect there to be problems. Chrome 10 is also out now, so you might want to give that a try.

 

none did. but all are on ssds.

 

I just checked my event log, which has boot-time diagnostics going back to the first time I booted Win7 on this machine, in January 2010. My boot times fluctuate quite a bit, but they have consistently hovered around 40 seconds, and they have stayed that way to this day. If I look just at the quickest boots I get, they have consistently stayed at 35 seconds over a bit more than a year.

I also booted an old WinXP laptop of mine that I had used for about four years (from 2002 to 2006), and it is as fast as it ever was.

I'd say the story of Windows systems necessarily slowing down over time is a fairytale.

 

Yeah...but the same thing happens in IE8. Chrome 9.0.597.84 is the latest stable build that I have been using recently.

 

my window 7 always slow down after a couple weeks but that's due to my own dumb experiment

and honestly w7 is a quite solid os i could kill a XP just under 2 weeks

 

From my experience, I've actually had less problems with Vista than 7 in terms of hardware compatibility and crashes. Both are definitely a step up than XP (based on my Acer machine with same hardware). For my desktop, 7 seems to be better than Vista and XP.

 

I have Windows 7 64-bit on my desktop and it hasn't slowed down from what I can tell. I defrag about once a month, maybe less.

 

No slow down, I use ccleaner as well and then do manual registry cleaning as well as needed, never had a problem, lol..
Cheers
3Fees

 

Based on my personal experience, I would tend to agree. But then if you look at the poll results, there are some who are experiencing a slow-down. Assuming that they have done a clean install, why do you (or anyone else) think this is happening to them? It can't simply be a matter of perception right?

Edit: @OP: One suggestion - maybe you could have put in an option asking about clean install or not against each of the choices that you have provided. May be it could provide some more insight. Thanks.

 

Yes, I agree, there seem to be cases where a slowdown does occur. If only we could get our hands on such a system to analyze it and find out exactly what causes the effect. The regular suspects are hard drive fragmentation, viruses, background processes and services. In addition, some nasty shell hooks or plug-ins and redirects for various system components might be the culprit as well. As a matter of fact, my first bet (assuming no malware) would be crappy anti-virus software.

Figuring out exactly what the issue is will probably require quite a bit of competence...

 

In which case perhaps the poll should ask (1) whether the Win 7 install was a clean one and (2) what AV is being used. That would maybe narrow the issue down just a bit?

 

Nope. 6-months and counting since new system build, CPU was OC'ed to 4.0GHz and system has been rock stable since. Fast as hell, no random system crashes.

Windows 7 Professional x64.

 

W7 Ultimate 64bit.

Windows has slowed down considereably over time, but I think that's just because I've had to install so many programs that run in the background...

 

Aside from slowed startup and shutdown times? Not really. I tend to tinker around in the OS and programs too much to the point where I just end up breaking stuff myself somehow >_>;

I'll probably wipe everything once SP1 gets released and stop messing with settings so much... Opera keeps installing to a beta directory, and removing it with Revo causes 2 of my desktop gadgets to totally stop working... along with some other stuff.

 

If you add a bunch of programs set to start up with Windows and run in the background, of course you're going to slow down bootup and shutdown. Otherwise, I really don't see any reason why W7 would slow down over time.

I believe this thread is asking if Windows 7 has slowed down for you overall, not taking into account startup programs running in the background which will slow down any computer.

 

windows 64 will get slower over time. the 32 bit emulation layer that is required to run the 32 bit apps is a drag on performance.

32 bit windows is the way to go for 99% of people. unless you work for a movie production co and have special software to run 64 bit better.

 

No issues with my 64-bit machine and 8gb of ram. My older Dell D630 with 32gb of ram running 32-bit windows has slowed down on startup over the past year. Once up and running it's fine. My netbook with 2gb of ram 32bit as well has had the biggest loss in performance all around.

 

I'm going to go ahead and call shens on this one. 64-bit is the future and the majority of PC's running W7 today are running the 64-bit version.

 

Please, pretty please go read up on AMD64 instruction set.
Do me just this favour.