deleting files and programs in My Documents

[Rossislx72]

I am always running low on memory less the 10% defrag requires at least 15%
to defrag. I see all these things stored in different folders. How do you
remove these from your system? Is deleting them enough to actually get more
disk space? Any other good ways to regain more memory? I knnow about acndisk
but deleting all the temp and stuff is spooky I think I am not sure exactly
what is being removed I just see the how large the files has gotten and the
thousands of files sitting there close my eyes and point to the delte key and
poof! This proper cumputer technique?

 

[Ron Badour]

Memory is ram and you are talking about hard drive space--they are not
related. Uninstall programs that are not needed. Double click My Documents
and if it contains files you have no use for, right click and delete them.
Run disk clean up--it should be in system tools on your start menu.

--
Regards

Ron Badour
MS MVP
Windows Desktop Experience

 

[JS]

Low Disk Space
How to free up hard drive space on your Laptop or PC
http://www.pagestart.com/lowdiskspace01.html

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I am always running low on memory less the 10% defrag requires at
least 15% to defrag. I see all these things stored in different
folders. How do you remove these from your system? Is deleting them
enough to actually get more disk space? Any other good ways to
regain more memory? I knnow about acndisk but deleting all the temp
and stuff is spooky I think I am not sure exactly what is being
removed I just see the how large the files has gotten and the
thousands of files sitting there close my eyes and point to the
delte key and poof! This proper cumputer technique?

Running low on space? Archive your stuff and/or buy a bigger hard drive or
secondary storage space.

Operating system and service pack level is a nice start - if you wish to be
very accurate - there are two things you should provide:

Start button --> RUN
(no "RUN"? Press the "Windows Key" + R on your keyboard)
--> type in:
winver
--> Click OK.

The picture at the top of the window that opens will give you the general
(Operating System name and flavor) while the line starting with the word
"version" will give you the rest of the story.

Post _both_ in response to this message verbatim. ;-)

See what is taking up the space and how the drive is partitioned.

Start button --> RUN (no RUN, press the "Windows Key" + R) --> type in:
compmgmt.msc
--> Click OK.

Answer things in the affirmative until the window opens. In the computer
management window, left side, locate and expand "Storage" and select (click
on) "Disk Management". That should bring up a list on the right of your
disks.

Find your drive(s) in that list and scroll left/right to see the
other columns and give the "Total" and "Free" space here.

Looking at the picture on the right side, bottom part of the Disks - how
is each one partitioned (divided up into sections)?

Now that you know how things are partitioned and how much space you should
have (in total) - let's cleanup.

Download/install this:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301

After installing, do the following:

Start button --> RUN --> type in:
"%ProgramFiles%\Windows Installer Clean Up\msizap.exe" g!
--> Click OK.

(The quotation marks and percentage signs and spacing should be exact.)

If you are comfortable with the stability of your system, you can delete the
uninstall files for the patches that Windows XP has installed...
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/spack.htm
( Particularly of interest here - #4 )
( Alternative: http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_hotfix_backup.htm )

You can run Disk Cleanup - built into Windows XP - to erase all but your
latest restore point and cleanup even more "loose files"..

How to use Disk Cleanup
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310312

You can turn off hibernation if it is on and you don't use it..

When you hibernate your computer, Windows saves the contents of the system's
memory to the hiberfil.sys file. As a result, the size of the hiberfil.sys
file will always equal the amount of physical memory in your system. If you
don't use the hibernate feature and want to recapture the space that Windows
uses for the hiberfil.sys file, perform the following steps:

- Start the Control Panel Power Options applet (go to Start, Settings,
Control Panel, and click Power Options).
- Select the Hibernate tab, clear the "Enable hibernation" check box, then
click OK; although you might think otherwise, selecting Never under the
"System hibernates" option on the Power Schemes tab doesn't delete the
hiberfil.sys file.
- Windows will remove the "System hibernates" option from the Power Schemes
tab and delete the hiberfil.sys file.

You can control how much space your System Restore can use...

1. Click Start, right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
2. Click the System Restore tab.
3. Highlight one of your drives (or C: if you only have one) and click on
the "Settings" button.
4. Change the percentage of disk space you wish to allow.. I suggest moving
the slider until you have just about 1GB (1024MB or close to that...)
5. Click OK.. Then Click OK again.

You can control how much space your Temporary Internet Files can utilize...

Empty your Temporary Internet Files and shrink the size it stores to a
size between 64MB and 128MB..

- Open ONE copy of Internet Explorer.
- Select TOOLS -> Internet Options.
- Under the General tab in the "Temporary Internet Files" section, do the
following:
- Click on "Delete Cookies" (click OK)
- Click on "Settings" and change the "Amount of disk space to use:" to
something between 64MB and 128MB. (It may be MUCH larger right
now.)
- Click OK.
- Click on "Delete Files" and select to "Delete all offline contents"
(the checkbox) and click OK. (If you had a LOT, this could take 2-10
minutes or more.)
- Once it is done, click OK, close Internet Explorer, re-open Internet
Explorer.

You can use an application that scans your system for log files and
temporary files and use that to get rid of those:

Ccleaner (Free!)
http://www.ccleaner.com/

Other ways to free up space..

JDiskReport
http://www.jgoodies.com/freeware/jdiskreport/index.html

SequoiaView
http://www.win.tue.nl/sequoiaview/

Those can help you visually discover where all the space is being used.

In the end - a standard Windows XP installation with all sorts of extras
will not likely be above about 4.5GB to 9GB in size. If you have more space
than that (likely do on a modern machine) and most of it seems to be used -
likely you need to move *your stuff* off and/or find a better way to manage
it.

 

[db]

the proper computer technique is the same as
used with managing the information derived from life.

it is called organization.

windows will do some of the work to organize the data,
but ultimately everyone has their own ideas or needs on
how or what to organize.

we cannot say what it is you have or don't have, need or
should need.

perhaps, you simply need to make some folders and move
those files from their vairous locations and into these special
folders out of "my documents".

think of it as sorting a bunch of fruit that are in one big basket
and you are resorting them amoung smaller baskets.

then toss out what is rotten or you don't like, then replenish
or update what remains.

the lesson to be learned is that if you don't develop organization
skills, you will go banana's.



--
db·´¯`·...¸><)))º>
DatabaseBen, Retired Professional
- Systems Analyst
- Database Developer
- Accountancy
- Veteran of the Armed Forces
- @Hotmail.com

"share the nirvana mann" - dbZen

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I am always running low on memory

You are apparently asking here about disk space, *not* memory. Please
do not confuse "memory" (RAM--the stuff that you probably have
kilobytes of) with "disk space" (the thing you probably have several
gigabytes of). They are very different, and using one word for both is
likely to confuse the people you are trying to communicate with.

less the 10% defrag requires at least 15%
to defrag. I see all these things stored in different folders. How do you
remove these from your system? Is deleting them enough to actually get more
disk space? Any other good ways to regain more memory? I knnow about acndisk

"Acndisk"? What do you mean by that?

but deleting all the temp and stuff is spooky I think I am not sure exactly
what is being removed I just see the how large the files has gotten and the
thousands of files sitting there close my eyes and point to the delte key and
poof! This proper cumputer technique?

Two points:

1. There are several things you can do to reduce the amount of memory
used. Deleting temp files is one of them. You can also uninstall
unused programs, reduce the amount used for System Restore, clear out
the Recycle Bin, turn off hibernation, etc.

2. All the things you can do to reduce the disk space used will give
you a relatively small extra amount of free space. Moreover some of
the savings will be temporary; things like the Recycle bin will get
filled up again. If you have a space problem, doing these kinds of
things will be nothing but a short-term stop-gap measure.

How large is your hard drive, and how much of it is free? You almost
certainly have a drive considerably too small for you, and you should
address the real problem by replacing the drive with a bigger one or
adding a second drive. Fortunately larger hard drives are very
inexpensive these days.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I am always running low on memory less the 10% defrag requires at
least 15% to defrag. I see all these things stored in different
folders. How do you remove these from your system? Is deleting them
enough to actually get more disk space? Any other good ways to
regain more memory? I knnow about acndisk but deleting all the temp
and stuff is spooky I think I am not sure exactly what is being
removed I just see the how large the files has gotten and the
thousands of files sitting there close my eyes and point to the
delte key and poof! This proper cumputer technique?

You are apparently asking here about disk space, *not* memory.
Please do not confuse "memory" (RAM--the stuff that you probably
have kilobytes of) with "disk space" (the thing you probably have
several gigabytes of). They are very different, and using one word
for both is likely to confuse the people you are trying to
communicate with.

"Acndisk"? What do you mean by that?

Two points:

1. There are several things you can do to reduce the amount of
memory used. Deleting temp files is one of them. You can also
uninstall unused programs, reduce the amount used for System
Restore, clear out the Recycle Bin, turn off hibernation, etc.

2. All the things you can do to reduce the disk space used will give
you a relatively small extra amount of free space. Moreover some of
the savings will be temporary; things like the Recycle bin will get
filled up again. If you have a space problem, doing these kinds of
things will be nothing but a short-term stop-gap measure.

How large is your hard drive, and how much of it is free? You almost
certainly have a drive considerably too small for you, and you
should address the real problem by replacing the drive with a
bigger one or adding a second drive. Fortunately larger hard drives
are very inexpensive these days.

Ken,

I am curious...

Did you mean "reduce the amount of [disk space] used" for your point "1."
above?

That's confusing. ;-P

*eg*

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I am always running low on memory less the 10% defrag requires at
least 15% to defrag. I see all these things stored in different
folders. How do you remove these from your system? Is deleting them
enough to actually get more disk space? Any other good ways to
regain more memory? I knnow about acndisk but deleting all the temp
and stuff is spooky I think I am not sure exactly what is being
removed I just see the how large the files has gotten and the
thousands of files sitting there close my eyes and point to the
delte key and poof! This proper cumputer technique?

You are apparently asking here about disk space, *not* memory.
Please do not confuse "memory" (RAM--the stuff that you probably
have kilobytes of) with "disk space" (the thing you probably have
several gigabytes of). They are very different, and using one word
for both is likely to confuse the people you are trying to
communicate with.

"Acndisk"? What do you mean by that?

Two points:

1. There are several things you can do to reduce the amount of
memory used. Deleting temp files is one of them. You can also
uninstall unused programs, reduce the amount used for System
Restore, clear out the Recycle Bin, turn off hibernation, etc.

2. All the things you can do to reduce the disk space used will give
you a relatively small extra amount of free space. Moreover some of
the savings will be temporary; things like the Recycle bin will get
filled up again. If you have a space problem, doing these kinds of
things will be nothing but a short-term stop-gap measure.

How large is your hard drive, and how much of it is free? You almost
certainly have a drive considerably too small for you, and you
should address the real problem by replacing the drive with a
bigger one or adding a second drive. Fortunately larger hard drives
are very inexpensive these days.

Ken,

I am curious...

Did you mean "reduce the amount of [disk space] used" for your point "1."
above?

Of course I did! I somehow used his terminology rather than the
correct one. Thanks for pointing out my egregious and embarrassing
error.

That's confusing. ;-P

Yep! My apologies, both to Rossislx72 and to everyone else here on the
newsgroup.