Virtualisation can be great, but one thing is wrong every Virtual Server suffers!
The solution was really simple the SQL Express instance had had no maintenance for 18 months, and hence the database was bloated, never been backed up to commit truncate logs, badly organised, badly indexed and simply needed some maintenance.
We carried out a full 5 point maintenance plan on the database, and the scheduled this to run.
The client now has a system they are confident in, and none of their staff are waiting for everything to happen.