Why is 64 bit Windows 7 Professional running so slow on my new 2011 15" Macbook Pro?

Question

I installed 64 bit Windows 7 Professional onto my new 2011 15" Macbook Pro and while the Mac partition runs fine, everything about the Windows partition seems to be slow.  There's hangups, random loading icons for processes that shouldn't require any work at all (even browsing through Windows Explorer will do this from time to time).  I don't undertand why this is happening, I thought running 64 bit would unleash the full power of my new Mac.  Should I just wipe it and do a clean install of Windows 7 32 bit instead?  I've never had issues/compatibility problems with installations of 32 bit Windows.

Answer 1

Well if you just installed it, then perhaps it's not validated yet and when it does there will be Windows Updates to increase the performance.
I'm sure you followed all the Bootcamp instructions about installing the Apple drivers and all that.
The only thing I can suggest is you reinstall it again after a few days and all the Windows Updates applied if it speeds up or not. Keep hitting it over and over. Make sure you have the free Microsoft Security Essentials installed or you'll get pwned really fast.
Also you have to remember that when Bootcamp carves out a Windows partition it's doing so at the bottom slowest part of your hard drive, the innermost sectors which are much smaller than the sectors OS X uses, therefore Windows will always be a bit slower than OS X, and there really isn't anything you can do about it unless you had a SSD.
I don't think you can install 32 bit Windows, even though it may run, it's only going to use half the registers of your 64bit processors.
Windows 7 64 bit runs fine in my virtual machine, I even get over 45 fps on Cube 2 Sauerbraten, but of course it's a rather light 3D game.
If you got the 2.0 Ghz 15" MacBook Pro, that could explain things, it's has a rather weak video card.