Computer is running very slowly

Diagnosing a slow machine. 1. Restart it. This genuinely resolves the majority of cases, especially on shared lab machines that are rarely rebooted. 2. Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc for Task Manager. Sort by CPU, then by Memory. A single process at 90%+ is your answer. 3. Check free disk space in File Explorer. Below 10% free, Windows cannot page effectively and everything crawls. 4. Look for Windows Update running in the background — it is CPU and disk heavy and will finish on its own. Warning sign: if the machine is slow within a minute of a fresh restart with nothing open, the storage drive may be failing. Raise a ticket promptly and back up your work — drives rarely fail gracefully.