Help the dummy

[I'm Murrin]

Tools > Folder Options > View, not just View.

[Fist and Faith]

Ah! Got it. And when I changed it like that during a search, it changed it back on Search > Computer, so I can see what else is in there. Still can't find all of them, though. Many say this:
C:\Users\Eric.RnRPrati-PC\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\UBG1IIVX\iframe3[2].htm

But C:\Users\Eric.RnRPrati-PC\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows doesn't have a Temporary Internet Files folder.

Anyway, off to work. I'll explore more later. Thanks.

[I'm Murrin]

Are you using Vista or Windows 7?

Anyhoo. Type that folder address into the address bar instead of trying to navigate to it. You may be surprised.

Though if you're clearing them out you shouldn't have any temporary internet files!

[Fist and Faith]

Vista. Which, I suppose, explains many things.

[wayfriend]

Rather than attack it this way - there are programs such as WinDirStat which do a fair job of showing you where your disk space is getting used up. Basically, it shows you your directory tree with %disk for each one. (It may need to chug away for a while to get this data.)

You may be surprised to find you got some stuff you didn't know you had.

Another thing to do is run a disk file scan. If you do things like turn off your computer w/o a clean shutdown (and if kids are involved don't think about it just say "yes"), you may have a good number of sectors that have gotton "lost", leaving you less free space.

So from C:\ folder, do Properties > Tools > Error Checking > Check Now. You may need to reboot when you do this, as it wants to run before Windows starts running.

Finally, I would look at the size of your page file in C:\. This should not be more than 3 times the amount of memory you have, 2 if disk space is tight.

[Fist and Faith]

Thanks! I'll try that tonight.

[Fist and Faith]

As you say, it won't do it before Windows starts. Problem is, it doesn't. It asks if I want to schedule it, and I click the Schedule This Freakin' Thing button. But it never asks when I want to schedule it. And if clicking that button means it's now scheduled to run the next time I start the computer, it doesn't.

[Fist and Faith]

OTOH, it worked the second time I tried it and turned the computer off and back on.

Unfortunately, the C drive now has 944 MB free, and it had 1.36 GB before.

[wayfriend]

I will not abandon you! I would try WinDirStat next.

Also, look in your base C:\ folder for new files. Sometimes if it reclaims disk space it puts the space in dummy files. You just have to delete them (and empty the recycle bin.)

[Fist and Faith]

Yeah, and after an hour, it's crept up to 2.23 GB free. Anybody think it's just time for me to get a new computer?

So, about windirstat. I won't know what to do with the stats it gives me. Just like I don't know which processes to End in Task Manager. Know what I mean? I might End a svchost thingy, and suddenly my computer doesn't work again. Right? I'll be surprised at everything it finds, because I don't know what a computer needs to run, and what it doesn't need.

[Dread Poet Jethro]

You said "dummy files"
Is that a technical term
Or an aspersion?

[Fist and Faith]

Heh. As I was saying...

[Dread Poet Jethro]

Last time that I saw
Something that psychedelic
Heh...that was some night!

[MsMary]

That kind of looks like when my Mac had a kernel panic.

(Though it wasn't funny at the time.)

[Avatar]

Well, there's your problem right there.

Your drive is too small for your Vista. Your windows folder is taking up 77% of your drive space, it looks like.

(Nifty prog WF.)

But Vista is only supposed to take up about 8 GB. Your windows folder is taking up 21!

Could be updates, or it could be a bunch of extra windows crap. (Or the disc image didn't get removed from installation maybe, i dunno, never used vista.)

Best solution is switch to Win7 on a new computer.

Workable solution is to pick up a new hard drive. You can get a 500GB one for less than $100 it looks like.

Then you can either reinstall vista on that drive, or, (perhaps easier and better), take everything but vista off the C: drive, and put it on the new one.

Use the new drive for storage and programs, and the 30GB one for the operating system.

Dunno why your windows folder is so big though. Shouldn't be.

--A

[Fist and Faith]

Why's my Windows file so big? It's because of winsxs, whatever that is:




Obviously, the next question is, what's in winsxs?



There are almost three hundred items with 0.1%, ranging from the 8.3 MB you see here to 6.5 MB. In addition, there are many thousands that don't have enough to rate above 0.0%, ranging from 6.4 MB down to 49 Bytes.


It's an old computer. Probably built by my BIL. Replacing it isn't a problem. I'm just wondering what's going on! Who's having fun here! Anybody want more detail about anything?

[I'm Murrin]

Google is the answer to all problems. (You mentioned clsoing things on task manager: I just google anything I don't recognise and there are many, many sites dedicated to telling you what these programs are and if it's safe to clsoe them.)

First result on a search for Winsxs:
www.abdevelopment.ca/blog/reduce-size-v ... sxs-folder

In other words: It's Vista's fault.

[Fist and Faith]

Very cool! I'll try that tonight, and give everybody an update.

[wayfriend]

Missed some action, but everything seems to be going in a good direction.

FnF, did you upgrade this computer to Vista from XP or 98 or something? The drive does seem small for the OS. If Vista is 17-18GB, you don't have a lot of room to spare. You may never get anything like 10GB free.

The nice thing is you can probably get a modest drive cheap and add it to your system. No reinstall of Windows or anything. Just put your personal stuff on the second drive, and leave the first drive for Windows and apps.

WinDirStat: Seems like you figured it out. All those squares? That's a visual representation of all the files on your computer, based on size. If you click on, say, that giant pink one, it will tell you what it is. (My bet is c:\pagefile.sys.)

In the upper left, you have a breakdown by type - sometimes helpful. 11GB for DLLs seems like a lot! Maybe those are in winxsx-ville. And 2/3 GB for Fonts? You install some additional ones?

Clearly your issue is the winsxs stuff, tho. You can probably shrink this, but maybe not as much as you hope.

But now that you gave the basic ideas, you can find your second- and third- largest folders, figure out what they are for, and see if they too can be shrunk.

[Fist and Faith]

The thing is, we don't have personal stuff. Any pictures saved to the hd, like those above, are deleted. Like those above. One or two might be left on for a while, usually because we don't go back to the file to delete it after putting it on photobucket, fb, etc. But we get to them eventually. And we don't have videos, music, games, our anything. We only surf, and the kids go to sites where they play games online that don't get downloaded. When they download something, we delete it.

So why have we lost more than a few GB's in the last couple years? I've been watching it shrink, bit by bit. Murrin days updates will account for at least some.