... windows 7 ... laptop ....
As much as I'd like to say that I think Windows 7 is the right OS for a laptop, I'd be lying. Try something like XP or Windows 98.
This is possibly the worst advice I have seen given in. To recommend
Windows 98 of all things--out of support
since 2006--is beyond stupid and is absolutely irresponsible.
Windows XP support, while extant, is being dialed back steadily and the software lacks fairly large security (and performance) features that have been introduced in Vista and 7. Furthermore, he has a 64-bit processor, which makes your suggestion doubly fucking poor, given the absolutely ruinous quality of XP x64.
Vista had some persistent performance issues, largely addressed in SP1 and SP2--it's not appreciably different than Windows 7 now. Windows 7, for its part, runs quite well on a goddamned netbook of all things. There is no good reason not to be using Windows 7 unless your computer is utterly RAM-starved--and even then, you may actually get better perf from Windows 7 than Windows XP. His computer is both fast enough and carries enough RAM to be just fine.
You need to stop giving people computer advice.
You are a danger to anyone who listens to you and it is entirely clear that you are not qualified to give advice on computer-related topics. In short, you are excrementally packed.