Need some help reviving an old PC
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I guess I don't understand why nobody has mentioned it. If the System is old, and CPU challenged (don't know its age), one of the problems that really can slow down a System is disk fragmentation. If the System is HDD-based, I would first defragment her HDD before anything else.
Nobody has mentioned it yet because disk fragmentation is not nearly as much of an issue with Windows 10 as it was with earlier versions of Windows....
NavyLCDR is correct, Windows 10 caches as much as possible of your frequently accessed files and executables, making them accessible from RAM rather than directly from the HDD. At boot up SysMain (the process formerly known as SuperFetch) spends about 5 minutes filling your unused RAM with cached files, that is is what's shown as 'Standby' memory in Device Manager.
Of course, if the HDD is heavily fragmented then SysMain is going to take a lot longer to cache these files, so a defrag is of some help - but maybe not as much as you'd expect once the system has settled down.
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While I appreciate your comments, this is a Windows 7 machine... it does not have the features you mention.
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While I appreciate your comments, this is a Windows 7 machine... it does not have the features you mention.
Then maybe this discussion should be on sevenforums.com rather than tenforums? I'm sorry that our answers are centered around Windows 10 on this forum whose main topic is Windows 10.
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I'm not the OP... feel free to direct your suggestion to their attention. I'm only trying to help him with his diagnosis...
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While I appreciate your comments, this is a Windows 7 machine... it does not have the features you mention.
Yes it does.....
SuperFetch was introduced in Windows Vista and has been retained in Windows 7.
How SuperFetch makes Windows faster | TechRadar
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Wow... you folks are really picky 
As I said, this should all be brought to the attention of the OP... I'm just here tryin' to help.
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Wow... you folks are really picky
As I said, this should all be brought to the attention of the OP... I'm just here tryin' to help.
Agreed, I say OP just do the defrag and report what happened. It's easy enough to do and can't harm anything.
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Well, I guess @bigseb now has (more than) enough information to decide between keeping Win7 or a Win10 upgrade for his elderly aunt's laptop. 
Personally I'd try the upgrade, with Open Shell installed to make it look more like Win7.
Open-Shell (Formerly Classic-Start)
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I've done the same with client's machines (usually using "StartIsBack++")... but God (and TenForums) help her if she has to enter the SETTINGS UI
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Thanks for all the responses guys (and girls?).
Basically she doesn't want anything to change, nor does she want to spend money. All she cares about is her photos and videos on there and her emails. The photos and videos are now safely stored on my PC for the time being but I fear her emails may be lost. She was/is using Incredimail as her mail client. This has been discontinued and needs Flash to run. I can't retrieve them as I can't install flash.
I agree that installing a SSD and running Win 10 is the best way forward but she doesn't want that so its kinda been like trying to revive a corpse, only less fun...
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