free up space

[badgolferman]

I have a laptop computer with limited hard drive space. I would like
to free up some space and have uninstalled as much superfluous
applications as I can. There are many Windows Updates Uninstall
folders under Winnt folder and I would like to know whether they can be
deleted safely. I just updated the computer to WXP SP2 but cannot find
the download folder to delete either. Also is there way to tell System
Restore to only save the last two backups?

WXP Home SP2
Sony Vaio
1 GHz processor
256 MB RAM
20 GB Hard Drive

 

[Ayush]

The folders under windows like $NT.... are only used to remove the updates
that normally people don't want to or have to. More info :
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/Hotfix_backup.htm

For the System restore part :
Right click my computer > System Restore tab
You can configure how much disk sapce it is allowed to use. Decreasing the
amount will result in less backups.

--

Ayush [ Be ''?'' Happy ]

|I have a laptop computer with limited hard drive space. I would like
| to free up some space and have uninstalled as much superfluous
| applications as I can. There are many Windows Updates Uninstall
| folders under Winnt folder and I would like to know whether they can be
| deleted safely. I just updated the computer to WXP SP2 but cannot find
| the download folder to delete either. Also is there way to tell System
| Restore to only save the last two backups?
|
| WXP Home SP2
| Sony Vaio
| 1 GHz processor
| 256 MB RAM
| 20 GB Hard Drive

 

[Rock]

I have a laptop computer with limited hard drive space. I would like
to free up some space and have uninstalled as much superfluous
applications as I can. There are many Windows Updates Uninstall
folders under Winnt folder and I would like to know whether they can be
deleted safely. I just updated the computer to WXP SP2 but cannot find
the download folder to delete either. Also is there way to tell System
Restore to only save the last two backups?

WXP Home SP2
Sony Vaio
1 GHz processor
256 MB RAM
20 GB Hard Drive

Yes the folders can be removed. The consequence is you can't remove those
updates later if one causes a problem. I wait until the next update cycle
and then delete them. If you want to be on the safe side copy them to CD.
After the uninstall folders are removed you can remove the entries to them
in Add/Remove programs. Just click on the Change/Remove button. It will
pop up a message that it can't remove the update and offer to remove the
entry.

Doug Knox has a utility to automate this removal process.
http://www.dougknox.com/
Win XP Utilities
Remove Hotfix Backup Files

Do _NOT_ remove the $hf_mig$ folder. That's needed for future updates.

For System Restore reduce the amount of space allocated to it from My
Computer | Properties | System Restore.

You can also edit the registry to cut down on how many days system restore
keeps restore points. The default is 90 days. See this article for how to
do that.

The Registry Keys and Values for the System Restore Utility
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/295659/en-us

 

[Baloo]

I have a laptop computer with limited hard drive space. I would like
to free up some space and have uninstalled as much superfluous
applications as I can. There are many Windows Updates Uninstall
folders under Winnt folder and I would like to know whether they can be
deleted safely.

Easiest way to deal with those is to use the Disk Cleanup Utility. To get
there, it's Start > Programs > Accessories > System > Disk Cleanup. It'll
take a while for it to get started if you use NTFS: Start Disk Cleanup and
go grab lunch or something. You'll be presented with a checklist for which
unnecessary or outdated filed you want purged or compressed.