If the above suggestion by zep doesn't give you the results you're looking for that are a few small upgrades you could do that would definitely increase the performance. The problem with the upgrades is they will cost $$$ and you'll have to be able to do a few basic installations and setups! Either that or be able to afford to pay someone to do it!

There is always be the possibility of upgrading the RAM and the Hard Drive. With the RAM you would need to figure out What Speed is needed and the amount or RAM the Motherboard can handle. With the Hard Drive, you would need to figure out if you want to go with a Hybrid Hard Drive or an SSD Drive. First you'd need to know if your Motherboard Supports SATA Drives.

I upgraded my Old Laptop a few years back from 3GB RAM to 8GB RAM (Had to replace it all, couldn't just add to it). I also upgraded it from Standard 5400rpm Hard Drive to a 500GB Seagate Momentus XT Hard Drive (this drive has an 8GB SSD built in that you boot from making the computer faster). This Seagate Hard Drive was also a 7200rpm hard drive.

The Hybrid Hard Drive is a Cheaper option then going to an SSD Drive would be. Although the SSD Drive IMO is a much better option and really isn't a huge cost per Gigabyte! I have gone both ways, 1 laptop with a Seagate Hybrid and the other with an SSD Drive. The SSD Drive out preforms the Hybrid in all tests! Either drive would give you an increase in performance!

-Fragmented files will only slow a pc when those files are being accessed. Defragging a disk doesn't do much unless there are a lot of file ins and outs.

-Vista was notorious for being slow and accumulating baggage that made responsiveness worse with time. Can you migrate what you're doing (including Quicken) to a newer PC? Also, I hope you have duplicate/backup files for quicken data and photo files on this 10 year old machine.

Do you shut the PC down after each use (so that the swap file can be cleared) ?

Do you clear the browser's cache, cookies, etc periodically (or have it set to do so automatically) ?

One thing that can slow a modestly equipped PC is having too many agents and little code pieces load up when the machine starts. Click on Start, then Run, then type

msconfig

on the blank line. Then click on Startup when a new display area appears.

Report back which boxes are checked. Unchecking unnecessary boxes (like for iTunes, Adobe, yada yada) will free up RAM and so speed up the PC.

Folks, thank you so much for the suggestions.

Snidely,

1. The OS is window 7, Vista was long gone - I am so glad I got rid of that demon.

2. I clean cache, delete history, cookies, and turn off computer regularly.

3. The startup only has one item - EOS Utility Launch that is for Canon. I only have MS office, Quicken, MS Onenote, Photoshop Element, and EOS installed on the machine. Adobe is for Photoshop element.

4. Yes, I backup quicken files. Need to back up photos, thank you for the reminder.

Zep,

What is cccleaner? where can I get it? I have not run defragment because there are not too many files being accessed other than Quicken and photos. But I will defragment the machine may be tonight to let it run overnight.

Bug,

I thought the hardware is good enough to handle my needs. Reading your inputs makes me wonder may be the RAM and hard disk are still too outdated for today's software. is it correct?

Should I just go ahead getting a new wintel laptop, instead of spending money to upgrade old machine?

Demon Vista pushed me to get my first MAC, just love it. Unfortunately wintel is a necessary evil as lots of softwares are not compatible with MAC.

No need for downloads you already have disk clean up and defrag in your Pc at System Tools, run clean up first then defrag.

Apu,

Zep said the defrag tool he recommended does a more comprehensive job. I will try the ones in the system tool first than what zep suggested.

I found cclear on the web. Will download and run it soon.

Actually the defrag process should run automatically on Win 7 usually at 3 am on Wednesday, but I generally run it anyway, it's a protocol I follow, clear temp, defrag, check hard drive free space. You might run an ESET on line scan too.

azmom,

I'd really have to assess your current computer to give you a fair and true opinion! The Specs you gave us were very general but lead me to believe it would be better to a new computer. If you did decide to go with upgrading your current computer those upgrades (if you went with a 500GB - 1TB Hybrid) would be in the range of $125-$175. Using an SSD Drive would be slightly higher. If you're able to do the work yourself you wouldn't have to pay someone to install and set up your new Hard Drive and RAM (you could also Clone your old hard drive to the new hard drive or do a clean install).

With the price of Laptops these days it might be better to go that route! You can pick up a pretty decent Laptop for around $300-$400. You can definitely get them cheaper, but you will get what you paid for.

Example: here is a link to a 2-in-1 Laptop for $379.99 Lenovo 2-in-1 Touchscreen Laptop I found this in less than a minute searching at Best Buy. I'm sure there are many others out there for a great price. This one has an Intel Core i3 5th Gen. Processor at 2.2GHz, 15.6" Touchscreen, 8GB Ram, 500GB Hard Drive, Backlit Keyboard, Can be a Laptop or Tablet, looks to be preinstalled with Windows 10, etc...

I already noticed improvement after only running disk cleanup and defrg provided by win 7 system tool.

I believe removing old files did the trick as the machine is set up auto defrg but left most file choices unchecked in the cheanup disk menu. May be the tech in the computer store tried to be conservative. I now only keep the system setup log unchecked.

I was overthinking wondered may be the slowness was caused by dated hardware, I should have looked at basic set up for cleanup and defrag first. My bad.

Again, many thanks to all of you for the suggestions.

Bugs,

It is really nice of you providing price point for both upgrade and new machine as references.

Actually It would be my next question if defrag did not work. I did not realize new wintel laptop is this affordable. Good thing as even I love MAC, having a wintel at home has became a necessary evil.

Nothing wrong with Mac, but I'll stick with the necessary evil! Your Macs these days have Intel Processors in them anyway!

RAM type is specific to the motherboard, not to the OS or software.

AZMom reported 4 GB of RAM in the first post.

If the operating system is 32-bit Win7 then 4 GB is the maximum it can utilize so adding more (if the motherboard supports more than 4 GB) would have no effect.

64-bit OS can utilize a MUCH larger amount of RAM.

This is True! Doesn't everyone run 64-bit, LOL. There is a good chance this computer is 32-bit, wasn't thinking about it being Vista. Many Vista Users had 32-bit machines. The computer I had was Vista 64-bit as was my XP 64-bit. I never really thought about this computer being 32-bit, good catch! I find it hard to believe but there are still many out there running 32-bit on Win7, Win8/8.1 and Win10!

My desktop is 64-bit. As it is sufficient for my photo shooting needs, I decided to replace its Vista with Win7 instead of getting a new Wintel laptop.

I have been using Wintel for forever, still remember the days of paying $2500 for a 'state of the art PC' with whopping 512k storage space.

I have been enjoying my MAC since I got it in 2014. I do think it has a better designed OS, I like its sleek applications and great performance from newer hardware. So far it has been trouble free, unlike the Wintel laptops from work even with technical support team's care, they have issues quite frequently.