My Os Drive Keeps Growing!

[raza]

I think you should check for norton recovery options coz it also takes too much space try turning it off and see what happens.

[suryad]

Clean out your prefetch folder, your windows temp folder...a helpful tool to automate a lot of tasks would be Crap Cleaner as well as System Mechanic which enables you to defrag and compact your registry hive which can free up some space as well. Make sure your registry is quite streamlined using the aforementioned tools. Make sure that your IE Temporary Internet folder is not oversized. I think thats about all I got to say man. Hope that helps.

[GLO]

GLO,

You don't need to save system restore. If system is working OK there is no need to save a bunch of old restore points. You can turn it off, then back on to flush all of the old restore points. Then make a fresh restore point. (or just leave it off and make sure to back up regularly)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Good point to note. I guess you really only need the last few restore points.

[GLO]

Can i move the swap file?

Yes, you can move the swap file - in the Advanced tab on system properties, performance settings then advanced, change virtual memory. Set C: to 'no paging file' then select one of your other drives and enter a custom size or system managed swap file. Remember to press 'set' on C after removing the old and again after adding the new. I have my swap generally set to a same min / max, and on a partition of it's own that no other files go on. Will stop the page file getting fragmented also.

SP.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks for this!

You wouldnt happen to have a list or make a list of all the stuff i can move off the C drive??

I just like to keep it lean and fast!

[GLO]

You Must Have Your Folder Set To Show Hidden Files And Folders

You Can Remove This Folder To Save About 400 MB Of Space

\WINDOWS\system32\dllcache

The Downside is that when Windows File Protection Needs A File To Replace

It Will Ask For The XPCD To Replace The File.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Will it accept a slipstreamed disk when asking for the XPCD?

[Zxian]

Yes, A slipstreamed disk will work. It's probably better in the end to use the slipstreamed disk, since it will have the updated files available. If you aren't hurting on space, I wouldn't clear out this folder just yet. I'd save that step as a last resort.

Another great tool that you can use is CleanIt. It will empty out your TEMP folders on startup and then close. I've used this on some systems and recovered a stupidly large amount of space.

I agree with the general comments about System Restore being somewhat weak. If you don't have the money to spend on a proper backup program, then use it. Just limit the size allocated to System Restore to a minimum (400 MB should be more than enough). I agree that Acronis True Image is probably one of the best out there.

Many many programs write to the system drive. Any application data is stored in C:\Documents and Settings\[uSERNAME]\Application Data\. Don't delete anything in this directory. You'll just end up screwing up your programs.

The way that I have my system set up is:

System: 10GB

Music: 20GB

Stuff: 20GB

School: 1.5GB

Installers: 6GB

VMWare: 12GB

My Documents: 1GB

Acronis Backup: 4.5GB

I've got the My Documents partition set up so that the "My Documents" folder points to this partition. That way, in case of a screwup, the stuff that's in My Documents from programs and such isn't lost.

I'll agree with Seapagan on the point about rediculously small system drives. I've got my 10GB system drive, and I'm only using 5.3GB of that, including a 1.25GB hibernation file (it's a laptop) and a 1GB pagefile. That includes all of Windows, Office 2003, Acrobat, MathCad, and all the other programs that I use.

[seapagan]

You wouldnt happen to have a list or make a list of all the stuff i can move off the C drive??

I just like to keep it lean and fast!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

As a non-exhaustive list :

page file (preferrably on a different physical drive, for performance reasons)

'my documents' Infact the whole user profile from documents and settings can be moved I believe (search for it).

temp files (go to System Properties -> advanced -> environment variables, and change the 'TEMP' and 'TMP' variables in both the user and system areas to point to another drive. Note you will probably have to change the user setting for each individual user you have) Once you have done this and rebooted you can clean out the original directories (in windows\temp and in C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Temp)

Temporary Internet Files (IE) IE -> tools -> Internet Options -> Settings. Change the path here to somewhere else.

Of course, use nlite to cut down the size in the first place!

Other Points : remove all the *.pnf files (NOT .INF!) from the windows\inf directory - these mount up after a while, they are recreated as required.

I am sure there are more that others can add to this. Personally, I would like to find a way to change the default uninstall location for Windows Update (when using the website I mean) to something other than the windows directory.

Hope that helps

SP.

[purewaveform]

have you checked to see where exactly ythe space is? http://www.jgoodies.com/freeware/jdiskreport/index.html is a tool that will analyses your disk drives and collects several statistics which you can view as overview charts and details tables.

That way you can just flat out see which files and directories are taking up the space and then move accordingly.

[albator]

IF you Use the c: drive for swap file, you will include for no reason the swap file in yours image for backup...

And I think that most people dont know what perfomance computing is about; when you use nlite and tweak windows XP can become as fast as 98...

My system boot from bios screen to windows in 7 sec.. The fact that my c: is so small help in that a litte bit.

[seapagan]

My system boot from bios screen to windows in 7 sec.. The fact that my c: is so small help in that a litte bit.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Again, I will have to disagree over this point - size of boot disk should make no difference to boot speed (mine is 20 gig, with none of the optimisations talked about here except using nlite to cut the OS down, and boots in less time than yours, ok that's on a P4 3GHz laptop, and an AMD64 3400+, but you never specified your system )

Hard drive speed, system speed, and the general state of the filesystem will make the difference. I'm a tall guy, and cramming me into the front seat of a Mini wont make me drive faster than if I was sitting comfortably in a BMW

Keep your drive clean and optimised by all means, but you will not gain a major increase by shoe-horning it into the smallest space possible.

my 2p

SP.

[GLO]

You wouldnt happen to have a list or make a list of all the stuff i can move off the C drive??

I just like to keep it lean and fast!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

As a non-exhaustive list :

page file (preferrably on a different physical drive, for performance reasons)

'my documents' Infact the whole user profile from documents and settings can be moved I believe (search for it).

temp files (go to System Properties -> advanced -> environment variables, and change the 'TEMP' and 'TMP' variables in both the user and system areas to point to another drive. Note you will probably have to change the user setting for each individual user you have) Once you have done this and rebooted you can clean out the original directories (in windows\temp and in C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Temp)

Temporary Internet Files (IE) IE -> tools -> Internet Options -> Settings. Change the path here to somewhere else.

Of course, use nlite to cut down the size in the first place!

Other Points : remove all the *.pnf files (NOT .INF!) from the windows\inf directory - these mount up after a while, they are recreated as required.

I am sure there are more that others can add to this. Personally, I would like to find a way to change the default uninstall location for Windows Update (when using the website I mean) to something other than the windows directory.

Hope that helps

SP.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

After implementing this, my OS is smaller than 1gb!

[army20]

Try "spacemonger" on google

[GLO]

Just revisiting this thread to see if anyone has found a way to move the location of the Norton Antivirus 2005 updates off the C drive.

I am particularly refering to the following parts.

C:/Program Files/Symantec

C:/Program Files/Common Files/Symantec Shared

Edited July 8, 2006 by GLO

[janus zeal]

Unlikely with NAV installed, but there are viruses that just write junk data to the drive. if you think that may be it try useing trendmicro house call. (free online scanner)

[LLXX]

You should also chkdsk it once in a while, lost clusters can take up quite a bit of free space.

I just clear out the dllcache and prefetch once in a while.