running out of space on OS drive? what can i do?

[GLO]

im using XPpro sp2, and have partitioned a few Gb for the OS, and programs and data each have their own drives.

However temporary data (images particularly) from IE and programs like Photoshop seem to utilise the C drive (OS partition) Leaving me with Low Disk Space warning and also Windows -Virtual Memory Minimum Too Low

How do i nominate a different drive? So that the OS partition remains as clean as possible.

Thanks

[CoffeeFiend]

There's many possible ways to fix your issues.

One thing could be simply resizing your partitions.

As for the moving temp files, it depends on each specific app.

In phoshop, you can set the disk for it's memory: edit > prefs > Plug-Ins and scratch disks, and change it to whatever you want.

As for IE (you mean, some people use IE? for real? ) I'm not sure as I don't use it at all ([edit] after not much searching at all, I stumbled across this. Why anyone would want to use IE it still beyond me...)

You could also make sure to empty your temp files (start > run > %temp% [enter]) - it gets pretty out of hand sometimes. There's a few more things you can do temporarily to cut down on hard drive usage, such as uninstall some apps if you can, or deleting the help files (in %SystemRoot%\Help - c:\windows\help in most cases). The help files sometimes take up more space than you'd think...

As for your Virtual Memory Minimum Too Low problem (especially if you use photoshop lots like I do), you might want to consider adding more ram. I'm not the type of person that tells everyone to get tons of ram no matter what (the kind that thinks/preaches it's ok to run a 8086 CPU - as long as you got a gig of ram ) but photoshop is clearly the exception. When working with some pano images over 80MP with a few layers and complex selections, photoshop can take over 500mb of ram by itself... I'm considering adding another GB of ram to my photoshop PC very soon to help with that, it's the worst memory eater of all the apps I ever used.

[GLO]

thanks crahak,

Actually I use Firefox but i didnt want to scare anyone off.

The time when i got the Windows -Virtual Memory Minimum Too Low was just after the other message Low Disk Space appeared.

I had about 8 tabs open in Firefox, hence i suspect that it was all the images that were in the browsers that caused the error messages.

How do you adjust the settings in Firefox?

Photoshop wasnt open this time, ad usually if im working on a very large file, the error message i get then is "Scratch Disk Full".

Thanks

[GLO]

also, all the stuff on my desktop seems to be saved to the OS partition, how can i nominate andifferent area for that? (as i thought i did that change when i changed the Document and settings location)???

[jrzycrim]

Have you tried using the cleanmgr utility? You can clear out some temporary and other types of unnecessary files with that. Start > Run, enter: cleanmgr

You should decrease the space for Temporary Internet Files.

Go to control panel > Internet Options

Click Settings

Adjust the amount of space that is used to around 50mb. By default, the setting is usually way to high. That will prevent your browser cache from becoming too large and possibly causing other problems.

If you don't use hibernation, you can disable that and free up some space:

Control Panel > Power Options, go to the Hibernate Tab, uncheck 'Enable hibernation. Click OK, click OK. That will free up space on your drive equal to the amount of ram you have installed.

If you are using System Restore, you can reduce the amount of space allocated for that:

Right click on 'My Computer', select properties, go to the System Restore tab, Click Settings. From there, you can adjust the amount of space used for saving restore points or disable it entirely.

You can also lower the space used for the recycle bin:

Right click on the 'Recycle Bin', select Properties. You can configure the bin for each drive or use a global setting.

You can set the photoshop scratch disk to a different drive\partition. Go to Edit > Preferences > Plug-ins and Scratch Disks.

Virtual memory can be adjusted. You allocate space for a page file on another drive/partition. Right Click on my computer, select properties, go to the advanced tab, click settings under performance, go to the advanced tab, click change and adjust your settings.

[<SparTacuS>]

If you have space on other partitions/drives the following will buy you time until your next setup (when you can re-think your partitioning);

Relocate your swapfile to another partition. A drive on a different IDE channel would be best -but whatever you can manage.

Use TweakUI to relocate some of the system folders that default to your system drive - My Document/Pictures/Music, Favourites and Document Templates can all be moved in this way.

[CoffeeFiend]

Right. I forgot to mention hibernate, system restore and the recycle bin. I only remember about them when it's time to disable them altogether You mean, some people actually use it?

Your firefox profile holds your cache, which is in your user profile (same as your desktop, your documents and everything like that). It sounds like you could use moving it to another drive. You can do that in the "User Account" (well, the classic one anyways, but then again, who uses the new one anyways?) in the advanced tab, click the advanced button, users, double click the user name, profile tab. You can even set it on a networked drive if you want. (there are other ways to change it too)