1GB is pretty small for a Windows 7 system (I assume you have Windows 7 since this is the Windows 7 forum). I tested Windows on a 768MByte system (0.75GB) and it ran OK, but it spent a lot of time paging things in and out of memory.
I'd strongly recommend an upgrade to at least 2GB - I think you'll find it helps a lot. RAM is very cheap these days, so it shouldn't cost much unless you have an old system and you're already at its maximum capacity.