major slowdown and lag

Can you be more specific? When you go into Task Manager and are looking at your running tasks, click on the mem usage tab and find out what is using so much RAM. Also, click on the CPU tab and find out which process is using the most there.

when i goto the memory tab something called trustedinstaller is taking like 298, right now 41% of the memory is being used. one thing i hate the most right now is when i was ordering this dkestop 2-3 weeks ago, didnt have the choice for me to have windows XP, now that i checked it has it. Vista has some seriously memory leak and performace leak somewhere. most of the time when nothing is actually running 34% of the memory is being used and at XP i remember my old desktop maybe like 100-200 mb of the memory is being used and i have atleast 1.5g loading for no reason. i ran 3Dmark few days ago and scored like 4000+ and someone with the same config as me scored like 6000-7000+

i have mcafee, also i have the google desktop installed but it not setup or anything, im not using it. at times when i do use the internet explorer is not completely smooth,s o i have to shrink the size of the windows drag it around than maximize it to have it moving smoothly. im pretty sure it some some hardware/software not responding to vista properly which is casuing all this LEAK in memory and performance. i knew the reasons for Vista doing this before buyin the desktop, but my old one died and i need to finish few projects in java/visual basic and some reason the xps 410 didnt offer xps 2 weeks ago :{. i mean the comp is decent iw ish it was fast as i thought it was. it prolly could be vista making my experience with this computer upsetting.

What antivirus are you using? Norton is a notorious resource hog, and doesn't play well with Vista. If you have something else, then your issue may lie elsewhere.

 

The TrustedInstaller.exe is supposed to run when something is installing, and then leave. However, from what I can tell by your posts, it is not ending itself. As far as that process goes, you can't fully kill it, but if you right-click it you can set its priotiry to its lowest setting and see if that helps.

 

Also, do you still have the Google Desktop/Toolbar installed? If so, try deleting both and see if your performance improves.

Make sure that you uninstall the Google Desktop. Vista already has native drive indexing, so the system will usually run slower if both are running.

 

Do you know how to go into Safe Mode? If so, is your system faster while you're there?

I have a simular issue with DOD:S on XP. No idea whats causing it, only happens once every hour or so. 20 seconds of 500ms ping, 5-6 fps. Alt tab out and back in and it often clears.

No AV installed and all non essential services disabled. Do you have wireless Lan at all?

 

i havent run safe mood yet, ill check that out in like few sec, im on a wired connection. i just installed the Quake Wars beta and tested that and pretty well on the 8600 GTS on the highest settings but i know that the 8600 GTS is like the 7900 except in a DX10 version of it, not sure. i changed the theme to windows standard, and turned off all the eye candy, soft shadow, soft edges etc so i would run alil smoother. im guessing the fact that Vista was a poor design on the GUI which causes major memory leak. also turned Speedstep ON  in bios which gave me the full 2.4ghz instead of the 2.39ghz. ill prolly upgrade to more ram hopefully this version of windows can see 3gb and upgrade the gfx card to the 8800 GTX. still some reason this comp isnt performing the way it supposed to, it may be mostly Vista's fault.

No 32-bit OS will fully utilize 3 or 4GB of RAM in the way you think it will. There was a /3GB switch you could put into the boot.ini (I believe) in XP, but I don't remember if that option is in Vista. Either way, though, that switch only opens up memory to programs designed to take advantage of the switch, and will not really impact general system performance.

 

Here's a good site I came across that explains the limitations of 32-bit technology and memory:

 

http://blogs.msdn.com/hiltonl/archive/2007/04/13/the-3gb-not-4gb-ram-problem.aspx