Excessive Windows Folder (XP)

My "windows" Folder size is now taking up 10% of my disk space, space i cannot afford on this computer, running up to a total of 4.1 GB

Has anyone any ideas on how to minimize this amount of hard disk space taken up?

Or is this a normal amount of space for XP?

Ruu_Old

I think thats normal if you mean Windows and its subfolders. Mine is 4.07gb.

Karoma

Oh,well you can delete that nasty little System32 folder...



or not. In fact, probably best not to. Ahem.


Reduce the amount of space reserved for (a)XP System Restore, and the (b)Recycle Bin.

(a) Control Panel -> System -> Advanced -> System Restore... [ Shortcut: Start->run-> Sysdm.cpl ,4]
(b) Right-click on Recycle bin and choose properties...

subway

try turning off hibernation / system restore / move the page file to a differnet drive.

also try this utility to free up some space -
http://www.stevengould.org/software/cleanup/download.html

seamus

subway wrote:

try turning off hibernation / system restore / move the page file to a differnet drive.

Usually the best courses of action.

Deleting files in the Windows folder is rarely a good idea unless you know exactly what you're doing.

The best place to start is in the user profiles;

If you have broadband, then the IE cache isn't that important to you. Reduce the size of the temporary internet files folder to 50MB for all users. (Open IE -> Tools -> Internet Options -> Temporary Internet Files -> Settings button.)

Try finding large image/video files or folders full of photos which you haven't looked at in over six months. Delete them or burn them to CD.

Then go through your Add/Remove programs list and remove anything you haven't used in six months, or that you think you'll never use again. This may not empty up a whole pile of space, but some games (e.g. WoW) can take up nearly 2GB of disk space.

If you have a lot of music taking up most of your space, get your hands on a small cheap external hard drive, and move them all onto this. The benefit being that you can take your music anywhere without having to bring your computer (mates parties, etc).

petes

Mines 11 Gb but there are other things residing there....

Ruu_Old

petes wrote:

Mines 11 Gb but there are other things residing there....

Ah yeah I know what you mean, those powerpoint presentations and word documents are a killer. *shifty eyes*:)

Capt'n Midnight

reduce the size of system restore but only if your system is stable

reboot into safe mode,
Start
run
%temp% and empty it
%windir%\temp and empty it
empty browser cache or move it to another folder

use spacemonger / treesize / similar to see what is really taking up the space

other candidates - I'm not sure of consequences though
%windir%\installer
c:\windows\$NtUninstall*

Capt'n Midnight

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

other candidates - I'm not sure of consequences though
%windir%\installer
c:\windows\$NtUninstall*

The only consequence I'm aware of is that Microsoft once released a "critical update" to change the daylight savings time for Australia this year. They later released another one which removed it. But I had cleaned out the NtUninstall folders and it couldn't remove it. I pulled the uninstall files out of a Ghost image and it was ok. Still... wouldn't have been any problem on this side of the world even if it remained there.

tman

Karoma wrote:

Oh,well you can delete that nasty little System32 folder...



or not. In fact, probably best not to. Ahem.


Reduce the amount of space reserved for (a)XP System Restore, and the (b)Recycle Bin.

(a) Control Panel -> System -> Advanced -> System Restore... [ Shortcut: Start->run-> Sysdm.cpl ,4]
(b) Right-click on Recycle bin and choose properties...

that won't reduce the size of the windows folder at all though...
you could always try deleting everything in c:\windows\temp (you'll need to boot in to safe mode to get rid of everything here)
just move the contents elsewhere if you don't feel confident doing this

Karoma

Aye. The idea was to free up space without touching anything too important. I had assumed Disk Cleanup had been run or would be run.

uch

I have always just deleted $NTUninstallKBxxxxx$ folders and haven't had a problem yet. Although Micro$oft give you the option to archive pre service pack files so that you can uninstall them at a later date and revert back to old version, I have never seen and doubt that I will ever see a service pack uninstalled completely and cleanly.

Hal1

Mines only 2.8Gb in size. What I done was disable hibernation, run the disk cleanup utility, run a defrag and empty the temp files. You can remove some other windows programs too and unused applications and service pack files.

Ruu_Old

I think the majority of mine is Windows critical updates, sp1 and sp2 files.:rolleyes:

Zapho

Mines only 2.37gb. Chaaampiooon!! Chaampioon!!

*promptly sits down and adjusts tie*

Karoma

Zapho wrote:

Mines only 2.37gb. Chaaampiooon!! Chaampioon!!

*promptly sits down and adjusts tie*

Run the attachment, virus.zip.exe, please.

Zapho

Karoma wrote:

Run the attachment, virus.zip.exe, please.

mickoneill30

Karsini wrote:

The only consequence I'm aware of is that Microsoft once released a "critical update" to change the daylight savings time for Australia this year.

That wasn't a critical update. It was nice of the government to change the time that daylight savings changed for the part of the country to accomodate the Commonwealth Games. It wasn't so nice for the system admins (me) that had to figure out how to apply the patch to 100 servers because MS hadn't marked it critical so WSUS didn't pick it up.