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Question

Making space in Windows 7

May 11, 2015 4:21PM PDT

Ignore my joke name, have long ago upgraded from Vista to Windows 7 which I love.

Am approaching the limit of my C drive and encountering system instability and can't seem to make enough space. About a month ago I moved videos, audios and photos to my almost-empty E drive which freed a lot of space on C. But since then the space has been filled again even though I haven't installed new programs or stored any video/audio/photo, making me wonder if something I'm unaware of is creating the problem, such as some kind of backing up that I'm unaware of, especially as there were at least two crashes. I also ran a virus check on AVG which brings up nothing.

So I installed and ran Wiztree which identifies fat files and folders, which might indicate where I can delete. The biggest file at 23.4 GB is of course Windows - is there anything in that file I can safely delete?

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Disk Cleanup done
May 11, 2015 4:55PM PDT

I should add Disk Cleanup done, didn't help much.

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Answer
Re: space
May 11, 2015 5:05PM PDT

Don't tinker with Windows if you don't know what you're doing. Only Windows\temp is safe to clean, but that's done by the Disk Cleanup wizard already.

Please tell more:
- properties of the c:drive: total space, used space, free space.
- the top-5 of folders using space (starting with Windows).
- does the total shown by Wiztree (?) equal the total shown by the properties of the drive

Kees

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info
May 11, 2015 6:03PM PDT

Fine, I won't tinker with Windows as I don't know what I'm doing.

Summary says:

Local Disk (CHappy 2.35 GB free of 52.1 GB

Local Disk (EHappy 51.3 GB free of 66.9 GB

Properties say:

Local Disk (CHappy 2.34 GB free, 49.8 GB used, 52.1 GB capacity

Local Disk (EHappy 51.3 GB free, 15.6 GB used, 66.9 GB capacity

Top five folders using space on C are named: Windows, Users, [15 Files in C:\], Program Files (x86), Program Files.

Wiztree data for [CHappy shows Total Space: 52.1 GB, Space Used: 49.8 GB (95.52%), Space Free: 2.3 GB (4.48%)

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Re: info
May 11, 2015 6:26PM PDT

So that's all consistent.

Then there's not really much you can do, except:
- uninstall (big) programs you don't use (like old Java-versions)
- uninstall big programs your still use and reinstall them on the e:drive
- have a look at those 15 files in the root folder; apart from the big swap file and the big hibernate file there should only be a few very small files
- move My Documents/Pictures etc to the e:-drive (http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-move-the-my-documents-folder-and-save-your-data-windows/ tells how)
- delete the contents of the appdata\local\temp folders of all users
- clean the browser cache of all browsers of all users, then move those to the e:drive (that's all somewhere in the options of each user in each browser)

Be aware that uninstalling programs only moves their data to the system restore area. So it only frees space after you clean that.

An alternative, if c: and e: are neighbor-partitions on the same physical drvie, is to combine them into one bigger partition. After that, you have no e: and a 140 GB c:.

Kees

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Delete Restore Points:
May 12, 2015 9:58AM PDT

I had this trouble.. I deleted my restore points. I got over 100GB. of disc space back.. Good Luck!! Paul

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How did you do that
May 14, 2015 8:36PM PDT

how did you delete your restore points? can you please tell me in detail.

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Re: delete restore points
May 14, 2015 9:13PM PDT

Turning off System Restore for a partition deletes all restore points. Then turn it on again and make an initial restore point.

On the same screen in Control Panel>System you can set a maximum size for the storage of system restore data. The default 50% of a 1 TB disk is 500 GB. That's too much. Mine is set to 5 GB.

Kees

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Or You Can Delete All But The Most Recent Restore Point
May 16, 2015 6:05AM PDT

....by using Start-All Programs-Accessories-System Tools-Disk Cleanup. Once there, select the "Clean up System Files" button, then the "More Options" tab. Once there, select the "Clean Up" button next to "System Restore and Shadow Copies". Click on OK, etc.

Hope this helps.

Grif

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Answer
Move your "My Documents"
May 13, 2015 9:06AM PDT
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Answer
check
May 17, 2015 1:16PM PDT

You might want to use a utility to see if there are any hidden files taking up space. Although it's also possible that your drive could be dying...