8.1 newbie need performance help

I am brand new to this forum and apologize if this has been covered and I couldn't find it.
I just bought a new HP 10.1 screen laptop. My wife needed something to check her outlook emails and to search the web. She doesn't expect to do much more on this machine.
It only has 1ghz processor and 2gb memory. It keeps hanging up as if the processor or memory is overloaded.
Currently I have ONLY the task manager opened So it reds 1 App, (task manager) and a minute ago had 37 background processes running. Now it went up to 50 processes. (just went back down to 38)
Except for the MacAfee virus scan that came installed with it, everything else takes up a small amount.
My CPU usage was around 50% but when it settles if drops to 5% but the memory is at 78% and nothing is opened.
I need to have this stop overloading so how can I tell what background stuff is needed. I'd like to shut off all but the essential one but don't know how or if they will screw it up.
Any help out there?
thanks

I would go to Programs and Features and uninstall Mcafee (and any other programs you don't need). The Microsoft built in Defender anti virus is sufficient in my opinion. Next on task manager Startup tab disable anything that you don't want to automatically start - feel free to ask if you don't know what anything is.

A new computer will speed up after a couple of days anyway as there are some tasks (like building indexes) which will complete.

One question - how is she looking at her email? Using the web interface at outlook.com, the windows mail client or the Outlook application that is part of office? The Outlook application uses quite a lot more memory than the other options.

Thanks for the advice, I would like to try it.
First though, HP installed the MacAfee software for this one month free trial but I don't think they removed defender. IU see it listed in 2 places, under programs and under programs (x86). (not sure why).
I can't tell if it is on or how I can start it.
Can you help tell me how to get it going?
Thanks
As for the emails, she loves Outlook. I know it can be huge but she wants all her info, (mail and old mail, contacts etc stored on her machine so she can work on stuff when not hooked to the web. However i will look into the other programs mentioned.
Thanks again
H

When you uninstall Mcafee you will get a notification in the action centre on the desktop. Go to the action centre and turn on defender. It is built into the OS and can't be removed - just turned off when you are using a different anti virus product.

If she likes Outlook she will not like to use web access or the windows mail app - they are decidedly inferior...

You should definitely install CleanMem. Disabling some useless startup items would help too, try CCleaner.