Vista Basic Running Really Slow
 

I've got a 6 year Compaq old laptop running Vista Basic, 1.5 GB of RAM, most
WU's are current, MBAM, SAS, CA Security Suite with the FW shut off. Windows
Firewall, Windows Defender.

The system is very slow for file/program commands (Open, close, shutdowns,
etc.). For instance, if I right click on Start and select `Explore' it takes
4-6 seconds for Explore to open up, and when it does open up a green status
indication running across the path window just creeps along to the right
very slowly. Is this some sort of an indexing problem?

Same thing with Task Manager.

Internet browsing is ok speedwise, although when I run Brighthouse network's
Road Runner Speed test, the results are poor (3500 kbps downloading). If I
do this test on my Acer Desktop or laptop, the speed is over 9000 kbps).
Running Firefox (but it's chewing up about 150 MB of process space).

Other performance issues: Firefox takes almost 30 seconds to open. So does
opening MBAM. And even longer for SAS.

To be fair the only thing I haven't done so far is run a scan with MBAM or
SAS, because the laptop owner doesn't want to tie up the computer for those
stretches. Would running those scans turn up things that could be slowing
this computer?

Any suggestions would be great. Thank you in advance...............Paul C.