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Hi folks.My 5 year old Dell computer is now showing only1/4 remaining hard drive capacity.I do not have photos or unnecessary programmes on the drive-all deleted that arent used.However I do have a cart load of Microsoft Net framework 2.0 service2,Net3 service2,and Net 3.5 SPI whatever these are.Also a trillion windows updates showing!Can all these be removed safely?Do hard drives lose their storage capacities with age?Any advice welcome!!! Maude.
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I too have a Dell, similar age. From time to time I have the same situation arising.After defragmenting etc, and a couple of reboots it seems to right itself. I had tried removing programmes etc, but it did not seem to make any appreciable difference. I have no technical knowledge, hopefully someone may be able to explain.
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Hi,

Do you ever run 'Disk Cleanup'? It is a microsoft utility that should already be installed on your PC.

You will find it in Accessories, then sub Directory System Tools. It will firstly scan your PC for any files that can be deleted and then give you a list of various files to delete.

You just tick which to delete and then 'OK'.

I usually just tick Recycle Bin and Temporary Files and do this once a week.

If you have not done this regularly, you can have a large number of temporary files build up that is not needed.

It is also a good idea to run a defrag regularly. My one runs in background daily. But there should be a microsoft defragementation tool on your PC as well.

I hope this helps. [:)]

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Normally you can delete updates once they have been installed and there are even tools to do it for you, see HERE

Personally I rarely if ever do them and certainly would never ever allow them to run automatically. I do usually install service packs but only when they have been out for a while and all the bugs and negatives have been discovered and ironed out.

The doomsayers will say that I'm exposing myself to all sorts of dangers and risks but it's a policy I have followed ever since XP came on the scene and I can honestly report that I have not had a single problem with any of the multitude of machines which I have owned in that time which could be attributed to a missing update. 90% of them address highly esoteric technical issues which the average home user will never ever encounter anyway.

As a futher aid to clearing out your drive try WinDirStat which scans the drive (or any drive or folder you choose) and gives you a report and a pictorial illustration of all the files on or in it so that you can see instantly what's taking what.

[img]http://windirstat.info/images/windirstat.jpg[/img]

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[quote user="Sizewell"]It is also a good idea to run a defrag regularly. My one runs in background daily.[/quote]Regularly yes but daily is sheer madness and on a par with a daily virus scan neither of which serve any purpose whatsoever other than to hasten the demise of your poor overworked hard drive [:'(]

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I can recommend Advance System Care from Iobit, there is a free version as well. This gets rid of an awful lot of un-needed rubbish, and I run it in conjunction with CCleaner. The new version also includes a booster, that turns off un-neccesary programmes running in the background, that speeds things up!

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I can also recommend Advanced Windows Cleaner. I've been using on a couple of XP machines and this Vista Laptop.

I first discovered it around 5 years ago when one of my XP machines started to take more and more time to shut down. When it got to more than a minute I decided it was time to take some action.

I tried several different free programmes and stuck with Advanced Windows Cleaner as it was about the only one I tried that did what it said it would do without alot of pffaffing about and annoying registration reminders.

Since then I've used it on many other machines I've been asked to look at and the results have always been good.

Regards - Tim

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We have a fairly new Dell that is also filling up albeit slowly we have tried 'cleanup', 'defrag' etc but it seems not to make any difference. I think it may be that there are a lot of duplicate update files but we are not sure how to remove the unwanted one without compromising the system
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Hi Folks-thanks for all the replies.however all advice has been followed previously,i.e disc cleaner windows back up rmover,defrag etc.Still only got less than1/4 disc space left!!! Must be Dell rubbish thats in storage although dont understand what.Still puzzles me as I dont play games,record tv or music and have removed all photies! Muade.
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Try running Windirstat, it gives you a pictorial indication of what's on your HD.

Both Vista and Windoze 7 use an automatic backup system which can consume several Gb. It's held in a folder called C:\Windows\winsxs and in practice there is little that you can do to reduce it's size. Mine currently sits @ something over 4Gb.

Also, whether you use it or not, you probably have a reserved hibernation file which will be the same size as the memory you have installed, plus a paging or swap file of the same size, so if your machine has say 3Gb of memory there 6Gb gone in an instant. Add the winsxs folder and suddenly you're looking at the thick end of 10Gb!

That said few machines these days will come with less than say 120 or 160Gb HD's so space should not present much of a problem for non game playing users.

[img]http://windirstat.info/images/windirstat.jpg[/img]

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Just had a PM from Maude but I'll reply here.

A 32 GB drive is quite small by today's standards. I assume your 5 year old machine is running XP so to do a search by size follow these steps:

In the Start menu select Search > For Files or Folders

Click on All files and folders

Click What size is it?

Click Large (More than 1 MB)

Click Search

After a minute or two you'll get a list of all the big files on your hard drive.

Click the label on the Size column to sort them

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thanks Folks for the help so far.With my depleting brain cells,my system info shows 512MB RAM,and local disc C,presumably the hard drive, shows as34.4GB. The remaining capacity is showing as 6.7GB when I look at the properties.The file search shows 2700 files,most of which are double dutch to me.The mystery deepens. maude
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Maude,

Is your search including hidden and system files? If it is, exclude them for now (option in the box above the stupid dog) and see if the remaining ones are more meaningful

If you sort the files with the biggest at the top, what are the the biggest ones? If your search includes system files there'll be a biggie for the swap file and possibly a few other obscure ones further down. At least some of the first 20, say, should have names or file types that mean something.

Alternatively sort them by file type and look for things like JPG files (photos), Movie clips and MP3 Format Sound.

You would definitely be better off adding an extra drive, but making that work simply with your existing one would take a bit of tweaking. Also, a machine with only 512 MB of ram is a bit puny nowadays, so you might be better off buying a new system box.

I've been playing with my own XP machine and having had a bit of a clearout it now has about 21 GB used. In other words less than two thirds of what you have in use.

I don't know if any of the system support oriented people around here can say what can be safely deleted from the old update files and service pack uninstall files. That would probably save yopu a whole lot of space if you have been using automatic updates.

Good luck

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[quote user="Albert the InfoGipsy"]I've been playing with my own XP machine and having had a bit of a clearout it now has about 21 GB used.[/quote]Crikey 21gb for XP, my Win 7 Ultimate only weighs in at 19gb [:-))]

The XP Pro install on my Netbook is only about 10gb and that includes a 2gb swapfile - and I consider that fat. I'm sure if I put my mind to it I could reduce it by couple of gb. No games or other rubbish installed of course. On this desktop PC I also have an XP partition, little used I admit, but that's only shade over 5gb.

Maude,

Have you run Windirstat as I suggested. There is nothing wrong with the other advice you are receiving but with Windirstat you have no need to mess about with custom searches including this/excluding that/searching for files of +/- xxx size, etc. etc. it scans everything regardless and simply tells you in the top half which are the biggest files and folders and below gives you a picture of your drive where the size of each box is directly related to a files size.

It's a tiny (about 700kb) stand alone programme, which means that it installs nothing else, it just works on it's own.

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Lots of update files, quite a few restore points and numerous assorted media files. Oh, and a couple of full backups from other machines! I haven't had a serious dig around yet, but there could be all sorts of tat lurking in there. I don't use that machine seriously now, but there could still be a fair bit of old work-related stuff. I'm talking about fairly large source data files (500MB+) and SQL server databases in the gigabyte range.

I gave the size just to highlight how full maude's drive had got.

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thanks again advisers!I have now run WinDirStat and the following is shown.Free space 7.8GB-20.9%

Programme files 15.4GB -45.9%

Files 768.3MB only.The remainder shows only very small % used.I,m slowly getting somewhere-possibly downhill but hey ho as the saying goes! thanks again Folks for the help.

Maude
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Programe Files is suspiciously large. That is the default location for stuff you install so what have you got in there taking so much space and can you uninstall some things you no longer use ?

Do it properly via the Control Panel or a programmes own uninstall routine, don't be tempted to just delete things.

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