When was the last time your laptop had a virus scan or disk defragment? How about the deletion of un-needed programs that may be running the background?
My recommendation would be to do the following:
1: Uninstall undesired or unused programs (control panel>Install/uninstall programs). My general rule is that if I don't recognize the program name, I delete it. Do a restart when you are done here.
2: Defragment your hard drive. (Start menu>all programs> accessories>System Tools>Disk Defragmentor>Defragment Disk). This operation can take a while so maybe make it an overnight process.
3: Try to download and install a well known virus scan program (like McAfee) and run it to make sure there aren't any obvious viruses on your computer. I would recommend uninstalling the program when you are done too, because they tend to take a fair amount of resources themselves.
If these don't work, you may try a full re-install of your OS or maybe even cleaning your laptop's internals. My old laptop ran super slow because it was over heating and it ran better after a quick clean.
There are many other potential suggestions but hopefully this is a good start!