Windows 7 extremely slow after updates

[Pedro3]

Hello…

 

I work at IT and this happened 3 times in the past 2, 3 weeks.

 

I do many clean installs and yesterday was the third computer that I had cleaned and install fresh on old PCs (5-8 years). All went well and they were running with a good speed, but after all the updates for Windows 7, they started to run very, very slow, it's impossible to work with the PCs like that, I had to reformat again, install OS and don't do no updates, and so far, so good, the speed is good again.

 

Obviously this isn't the best solution because of the safety issue.

 

I tried to find the problem with the slow down, AV, CCC, stats of hardware, but nothing.

 

I don't want to update them to Windows 10 because some external hardware might not be fully compatible.

 

What other choices do I have?

 

Thank you.

[kozukumi]

After doing the install and all the updates do another reboot then manually start System Maintenance from within Control Panel -> Security and Maintenance -> Maintenance. Then leave the computer until it is finished. Then run it again! Yes I know it is a pain in the ass but what this does is all Windows to go through and tidy up everything. It will optimise the disks (defrag), clean up and regen all of the .NET GAC, do boot optimisations, etc. I have found doing this gets the computer back up to running at a good speed. I am sure others will say it is pointless but just give it a try on one machine and then see if it made any difference for you. I don't have many Windows 7 machines these days but for the ones I do have this has always worked great for me. 

[Mando]

silly q but anything showing under "all users" in task manager sucking up resources?

 

i support 1500 desktops on w7 pro and haven't experienced this slowdown or have end users report systems being slow post patching (via WSUS) since the last major W7 service pack.

 Have you tried other source media, incase somethings not quite right with the image your using? Ive seen usb W7 media installs go awry from time to time. outwith my own home pcs, I cant recall the last time i reformatted a pc without using SCCM, thankfully we have limited standard boxes of tin so management is simple.

 

You need to work out whats causing it, as leaving w7 PCs unpatched is not recommended, for security reasons at the very least, as you have stated  

 

I always remove old login profiles that no longer access systems, disk clean (advanced system clean) then defragment the drive also when a lot of patches have been applied. an old habit, but a good habit  I also make sure sys restore etc is disabled before joining to the domain if its an old school install method, this is very rarely, i usually just nuke existing installs and redeploy the image.

 

I also make sure all clients have at least 4Gb ram especially if platter drives. win 7 on any less is painful  

Edited January 31, 2016 by Mando

[Pedro3]

Thanks for the tips, will try what you both told me and then I'll give feedback

[Mando]

23 hours ago, Pedro3 said:

Thanks for the tips, will try what you both told me and then I'll give feedback

a slow and painful way is to apply each patch singular and test after each one, no fun but doable buddy  One to watch for is Office validation file, ive seen that slow down MS Office to the point the whole machine struggles.

[seeprime]

On 1/31/2016 at 6:29 AM, Pedro3 said:

Hello…

 

I work at IT and this happened 3 times in the past 2, 3 weeks.

 

I do many clean installs and yesterday was the third computer that I had cleaned and install fresh on old PCs (5-8 years). All went well and they were running with a good speed, but after all the updates for Windows 7, they started to run very, very slow, it's impossible to work with the PCs like that, I had to reformat again, install OS and don't do no updates, and so far, so good, the speed is good again.

 

Obviously this isn't the best solution because of the safety issue.

 

I tried to find the problem with the slow down, AV, CCC, stats of hardware, but nothing.

 

I don't want to update them to Windows 10 because some external hardware might not be fully compatible.

 

What other choices do I have?

 

Thank you.

If you do a lot of re-installs of the same version of Windows 7 I suggest that you prepare a Preinstallation image that is up to date and loaded with all common programs. This can easily be restored to a hard drive (we use Macrium Reflect) and put to use quickly. It's a huge time saver.

[Pedro3]

15 hours ago, seeprime said:

If you do a lot of re-installs of the same version of Windows 7 I suggest that you prepare a Preinstallation image that is up to date and loaded with all common programs. This can easily be restored to a hard drive (we use Macrium Reflect) and put to use quickly. It's a huge time saver.

If I do that, I just need to install the drivers for the specific machine, right?

[Danielx64]

Yes that's correct and make sure you run sysprep on the base machine before deploying that new image.

[Ve7878]

1 hour ago, Danielx64 said:

Yes that's correct and make sure you run sysprep on the base machine before deploying that new image.

Also make sure you have a volume license.

[seeprime]

13 hours ago, Pedro3 said:

If I do that, I just need to install the drivers for the specific machine, right?

Yes. Anu drivers not in the pre-installation image need to be downloaded and installed for the clean install to run well. 

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

it's hard to diagnose something like this. I'm guessing that the hard drives here are traditional hard drives so there's probably a lot of trashing happening. Perhaps the C: partition is too small, so the updates are taking too much free space. Perhaps there's not enough RAM so there's a lot of thrashing with the page file. Perhaps the computers are missing chipset drivers. This will cripple a PC's performance.

 

How does it act slow, exactly? For how long?

[Pedro3]

5 hours ago, Jason S. said:

it's hard to diagnose something like this. I'm guessing that the hard drives here are traditional hard drives so there's probably a lot of trashing happening. Perhaps the C: partition is too small, so the updates are taking too much free space. Perhaps there's not enough RAM so there's a lot of thrashing with the page file. Perhaps the computers are missing chipset drivers. This will cripple a PC's performance.

 

How does it act slow, exactly? For how long?

Totally agree, it's hard to diagnose. The HDDs are SATA and 120GB (I think). There's no partitions. RAM is 2GB. I've formatted one of them, install everything except updates and is working great (for an old PC).

 

When I turn them on, they work OK, but after about 15 minutes I can't do almost nothing, I click on the Start Menu and have to wait almost a minute. They work, but are so slooooow. And it's not just the Start Menu, it's everything that I click, a folder, open an application, etc.

[Tikimotel]

It sounds windows performing a shadow copy at every boot or reboot or user login. Are you sure you installed (the SP1 iso install to current) updates in order, without manipulation, adding optional updates manually in between?

There is a windows 7 32-bit update for windows update itself, WindowsUpdate would be stuck in "checking for updates" state and never update. Are you using 32-bit installs, because you are running only 2GB?

Google for "windows update stuck at checking for updates" --> http://superuser.com/questions/951960/windows-7-sp1-windows-update-stuck-checking-for-updates

 

I had that same issue (similar) with some Vista installations, it detected a incorrect /  wrong shutdown and would initiate a full system scan and system recovery at each and every boot and or user login (this scenario should only take place once a week)

The HDD LED would burn continuously for 1 to 2 hours before settling down, it turned out to be a windows service that was misbehaving after a windows update.

I turned off almost everything regarding system checking and still it would hogg the HDD and perform a recovery or shadow volume copy.

Only recently there was a fix in the updates that finally fixed that issue with that service.

 

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

like i mentioned it could be that the PC is missing chipset drivers. also, make sure the BIOS has the right hard drive settings, such as AHCI (if available)

[Dot Matrix]

This post is a year old... 

 

But if you're my IT Dept... Have you tried cleaning the browser cache? 

[Xahid]

8 minutes ago, Dot Matrix said:

This post is a year old... 

 

But if you're my IT Dept... Have you tried cleaning the browser cache? 

Why? why did you dig that grave ?

[Dot Matrix]

1 minute ago, Xahid said:

Why? why did you dig that grave ?

I didn't. There *was* a poster above me, that seems to have vanished now...?  

[Xahid]

10 minutes ago, Dot Matrix said:

I didn't. There *was* a poster above me, that seems to have vanished now...?  

LOL

Today is not 1st April tho.

[Pedro3]

Up until now, after resinstalling windows 7 and not doing no updates, the computers work fine.

 

Yes, I know it's a security risk and I always talk about it, but people prefer to take that risk instead of buying a new computer. And, in a certain way, I agree with them. Looks like is just Apple forcing us to buy new hardware…

[satukoro]

51 minutes ago, Dot Matrix said:

This post is a year old... 

 

But if you're my IT Dept... Have you tried cleaning the browser cache? 

In all fairness, I've seen some employees with over 2GB worth of browser cache alone. Not counting what's in the rest of the temp folder or the recycle bin.