>> Brian Tong: Are you running Windows Vista and you're looking to free up some disk space? I'm Brian Tong from CNET.com and in today's Insider Secret; I'll give you some tips to help you out.
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First thing we have to thank our CNET forums moderator John Wilkinson [assumed spelling], for hooking us up with great tips like these. Now, Windows Vista can take up over 5 gigs for a clean installation, and upwards of 10 gigs if it's been preinstalled by the manufacturer. That's a whole bunch, so how do you get more disk space? Well if you're upgrading from a previous version of Windows or installing another copy, go to the local drive which is usually the C drive and look for the Windows dot old folder. It contains previously installed programs, documents and other goodies. So just copy what you need and delete the rest. Now a system restore can reserve up to 15 percent of your drive's capacity for saving restore points and in XP there's a slider to adjust the space allocated, but in Vista you have to adjust it with the command line. So let's press the Windows key plus the letter R and type in the CMD and press enter. Now when the command prompt shows up, type in the following line and you can type in a different shadow storage size but it has to be a minimum of 300 megs. Everyone has a lot of personal files that can take up gigs of space. I know this first hand since I edit a whole bunch of video. Now our own Download.com has a free program called Tree Size and with a few clicks it will break down what's taking up most of your storage space for you to get rid of. You can also limit the size of your recycle bin. We end up keeping files in there forever and they can just add up. So all you have to do is right-click it, select properties and adjust the capacity. And yes, you can also empty your recycle bin. Now if you're looking for help, you can always check out our forums at Forums.cnet.com. I'm Brian Tong and these are just a few ways to help you free up hard drive space in Windows Vista. Use them wisely.
