Okay, thanks for all the suggestions guys. I think I’ve got things working a bit better now (remains to be seen). ThoseBananas sent me a link and I ran a few programs (cleaner, adawarem stopsign), then removed a buncha stuff from my startup. I’m hesitant to say ‘all better!’, but at least my windows close quickly again. Good things you folks are good for more than just arguing protein supplementation with 
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What you need to do is clear your desk top. Every icon on your desktop requires memory. They also have to be drawn every time you go to your desk top. If you are not likely to use a quicklink everytime you use your computer remove it or at least creae a file to put them all into. everytime you use your computer
If you have a background picture or textured desktop lose it. All that stuff requires the graphics card to have to draw it. So just go to a plain background.
Also if you have programs that automatically load at startup like messenger change your settings so you have to tell them when to launch. That way you don’t run a bunch of crap that you may not be using and even the stuff that you do use doesn’t interfere with your boot. It will allow your computer to boot faster.
Toolbars are another thing get rid of. I inherited a laptop because it wasn’t running well. It had a toolbar on it that was spyware. As soon as I got rid of the toolbars, cleared the desktop and got rid of the background picture of some girl with a really nice ass I had a usable laptop. I’m using it right now.