Recover From the Dreaded "You Have Insuffcient space on Drive C"

What's the most efficient way of breathing new life in the C drive

[engine]

I was shocked the other day when my system warned me of insufficent space on drive C.

I usually add new programs to drive D to save precious space on the C drive.

I'm reluctant to install a new disk because of all the hassles involved, although it may end up being the best solution.

For many years now I've been clearing my browser cache, dumping unused programs, etc., but free disk space on C is becoming a rarity.

So, what do you do to keep your C drive in tip-top shape?

What else can I look at on the Win XP pro system?

[lawman]

Large capacity external hard drives are cheap and internal ones are even cheaper. Get one and transfer non-system files to the new drive.

[LifeinAsia]

1) Dump anything older than a day in:
- C:\Temp
- C:\Windows\temp
2) Delete (backup first, if you're really paranoid) any C:\Windows\$NtUninstall* folders older than a month or so. (If a Windows update causes a problem, you'll probably notice it within the first month.)
3) You can probably dump a lot of stuff from C:\Windows\Help
4) If you've gone crazy in the past adding all kids of weird fonts, go do some housecleaning in C:\Windows\Fonts
5) You can also compress directories that you don't use very often.
6) Move your pagefile.sys file to another drive (you can't just move it- you have to make the changes through MyComputer and I believe a reboot is required afterwards).
7) Search your hard drive for any .dmp files (saved by your computer during a crash)- dump the .dmp files!
8) Search for any other *.tmp files, in case you have a strange programming saving them elsewhere.
9) Search for any *.log files. Use your judgement, but you can probably delete them. (May want to turn off any logging that you don't need.)

[tomda]

Have the same things when I run too many applications at the same time... Like you, everything is installed in D to keep C clean and low but I sometime get this warning when having heavy application running.

It is just temporary, it comes and go, and C is OK... So I have decided not to pay attention to the warning anymore.

[DrDoc]

... but, in the end, it's not unheard of needing to reinstall Windows. Heck, it keeps growing and turn into molasses over time. This, unfortunately, is due to a lot of internal junk stuff which you cannot do anything about. :(

But, until then -- there are some excellent suggestions in this thread.

[PCInk]

If you use Microsoft Access, then go into your databases onto the "Tools" menu and "Compact and Repair..."

This put one of my Access databases from 1.7Gb to 44Mb in about one minute.

Add/Remove programs - there's always a program that you don't use anymore - get rid of it.

In System Tools, use Disk CleanUp.

This will get a bit of space, not normally huge amounts, but all the small things add up.

Also check your virtual memory settings. This can be usually be reduced slightly, in some cases a lot - depending on how much of a 'power user' you are!