huge window folder 44 gbs from automatic update why?

[Steve]

To the Microsoft support team,
I have a HP DV1000 laptop that I bought from Staples office supply. When I
bought it had service pack 1 on it. Over the years it has updated and
upgraded automatically. It recently upgrade to service pack 3. It has a 1.5
Gb processor, 100 Gb hardrive, and 1 Gb of ram memory.


Recently, I found that I have only 23 Gb's of free space on the hardrive. I
started cleaning my documents but barely made a dent in freeing up space.
After studying everything on my hardrive I find that the windows folder has
44 Gb in the windows file. I look at a friends XP computer and the windows
folder is only 4.2 Gb's in the windows folder. My windows folder is ten times
larger in size. WHY?
My hardrive is 100 Gb drive, 92 Gb for storage. I have 27 Gb of programs, 23
Gb of free space and 44 Gb's for window.

I need to determine why the windows folder is ten times larger the other
computers with windows XP. How can I clean out the unneeded files? In
addition, can I clean up the drive without doing a restore of the computer
and starting over? I tried to copy all the file names in windows but the file
was to larger.

How do I know some hacker is not taking up space on my hardrive to use my
computer?
I have had some weird thing happening in yahoo IM.

Steve Wilson

 

[JS]

Which folder or subfolder(s) under C:\WINDOWS has used up all your disk
space?

JS
http://www.pagestart.com

 

[Patrick Keenan]

To the Microsoft support team,
I have a HP DV1000 laptop that I bought from Staples office supply. When I
bought it had service pack 1 on it. Over the years it has updated and
upgraded automatically. It recently upgrade to service pack 3. It has a
1.5
Gb processor, 100 Gb hardrive, and 1 Gb of ram memory.


Recently, I found that I have only 23 Gb's of free space on the hardrive.
I
started cleaning my documents but barely made a dent in freeing up space.
After studying everything on my hardrive I find that the windows folder
has
44 Gb in the windows file. I look at a friends XP computer and the windows
folder is only 4.2 Gb's in the windows folder. My windows folder is ten
times
larger in size. WHY?
My hardrive is 100 Gb drive, 92 Gb for storage. I have 27 Gb of programs,
23
Gb of free space and 44 Gb's for window.

I need to determine why the windows folder is ten times larger the other
computers with windows XP. How can I clean out the unneeded files? In
addition, can I clean up the drive without doing a restore of the computer
and starting over? I tried to copy all the file names in windows but the
file
was to larger.

How do I know some hacker is not taking up space on my hardrive to use my
computer?
I have had some weird thing happening in yahoo IM.

Steve Wilson

This sometimes happens if you mistakenly point a scheduled backup *to* the C
drive.

Otherwise, you're going to need to be a lot more specific about where
exactly the excess space is being used, and yes, this means you're going to
have to do some comparisons. "the windows folder in the windows folder"
isn't clear.

HTH
-pk