Lion is slow, unresponsive - fixes?

Hello all,
I've gone through several topics simialar to this one, but cannot seem to see an answer.
System:
MacBook Pro, 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7 with 8GB of 1067 MHz DDR3 RAM
500GB HD, partitioned with 400GB to OSX and 100GB to BootCamp for Windows 7 64-bit Ultimate
Challenges:
The system has a pretty slow start-up to get "warm", or ready to run applications. As I attempt to access menus and such, the lag time between click and action is beyond anything I have ever seen. Sometimes even several seconds.
I need to use virtualization to work in Windows and OSX at the same time. My VM was Fusion 4, and I am now trying Parellels 7. The VM is built to use just under 4GB of RAM - making a 4/4 split for each OS.
History:
This system was an upgrade installation from a previous OSX 10.6 install, whcih was in turn an upgrade from 10.5
Attempted Fixes:
1) reset SMC
2) verified permissions and disk health both inside and outside the OS (via the Utility/Revovery partition)
3) used CleanMyMac to remove several older Applications that I no longer use and/or that were Universal Apps
What I am trying to avoid:
I don't want to scrub the system and re-install everything. Mostly, becuase I have serveral dozen Apps and re-installing them would be time-consuming to say the least. I'm also not sure what would happen to my Boot Camp partition and I want to keep it.
So.... I am wondering if there is a way to re-install LION without removing my BootCamp parition, documents, and Applications.
I do have a Time Machine back-up of the system and will resort to a full re-build if it comes down to it, but that is one of the reasons I moved from Windows - I don't want to have to do complete re-installs of the OS every 6 months.
Thanks in advance for any ideas/suggestions that you can provide. I'm also going to try to adjust my VM settings to a 3/5 split to give OSX a little more room. However, even if the VM isn't running OSX can be slow.... so I'm not holding my breath on that fix.

If you restart in Safe Boot mode then continue to log into your User's account is safe boot, do you see a difference?
* shutdown
* start the Mac and *wait* for the startup chime to sound
* after the sound, press and hold down the shift key
* keep holding and *wait* until the grey  Apple logo appears
* now release the shift key and just wait (it could take a few minutes)
* eventually the login screen appears with the words SAFE BOOT
These are some of the items disabled on safe boot:
Disables all fonts other than those in /System/Library/Fonts
It moves to the Trash all font caches normally stored in /Library/Caches/com.apple.ATS/(uid)/
Disables all startup items and login items
To continue troubleshooting see this link. It includes help for Microsoft Office, but covers steps to eliminate the source of the problem for Macs.
http://www.officeformachelp.com/office/troubleshoot/

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michaelfromrice lake wrote:
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hey guys,
I just updated to mountain lion
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Have tried everything possible, repairing permissions etc to no avail.
You haven't tried everything possible or you would have a solution. If you tried the most extreme possible solution (erasing the hard drive, then reinstalling the system and nothing else) and still had the same problems, you would have discovered that you almost certainly have a hardware problem. For some solutions that you haven't tried yet, I'll refer you to the same two links I referred sylee48 to.
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Lion is slow, unresponsive - fixes?

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