Since you are just looking for more drive space and not necessarily a faster system
you can do several things.
1. You can run Disk Cleanup from the Properties of each drive (My Computer, right
click on the Drive and select Properties) letting it do it's thing compressing files,
and identifying Temp, TIF and other files that can be safely removed. About the only
thing you can do bad in Disk Cleanup is remove the Restore files to a OS or Version
of IE you have Upgraded from. If you know you will never go back you can check them
for removal as well. Simply cleaning your system this way can often give you back a
lot of space.
2, You can remove unneeded programs in Add / Remove Programs that you recognize as
ones you seldom or never use. If you are like me you may often load programs to look
at and then not go back and get rid of them.
3. You can run or use one of the Utilities more powerful then Disk Cleanup
available that identify large and or useless files. I use EasyCleaner to both clean
up my Registry and identify useless files.
http://personal.inet.fi/business/toniarts/ecleane.htm
A heavy warning must go along with any Utility, week or strong, due to the damage
they can do. EasyCleaner has both a Skip feature to skip Registry entries with a key
word in them and a Redo file to put back what it may have removed. I have never had
to use either, but it is good that they are there. On Files to be removed a good
full backup is a must when using EasyCleaner's file removal features since you can
end up deleting files you didn't intend. I generally use EasyCleaner to just
identify possible files that are temp in nature or extremely large and only delete
those that I can "positively" identify as unneeded.
After running the above routines if you still don't have enough space either a new
larger main hard drive or a second storage drive will help. Of course replacing your
main hard drive will require reinstalling Windows and all your programs to the new
clean drive, something that would greatly increase the space on your present drive if
you reformat it,
so most people balk at doing that. Adding another folder to
move your photos, videos and other data type files will greatly increase your space
while not fooling with your OS installation. Just don't try to move programs by
dragging them from one drive to the other as they need to be uninstalled from the
main drive and reinstalled to the new drive if you want to move them.
If you do decide to install a new, and possibly faster, main hard drive you might
want to take a look at this article on the Microsoft Files and Settings Transfer
Wizard (F.A.S.T.). It will allow you to transfer most of your personal settings and
data files to the new drive. You will still need to install Windows and all your
programs first so it still takes a lot of time, you just save the pain of redoing any
settings you have set and it will also with the exception of your passwords also set
up your E-mail accounts including old E-mails and many other of the things we tend to
accumulate and get used to having handy.
4. If you have not been using a Defragger, you ought to be. They do some simple
compression and more efficiently store your files. Not a big space maker by no
means, but particularly if you have not been running one you might be surprises how
much better your system runs and you may even have a little more space. This is a
must after a session of cleaning up your system.
