HD Clean up: Safe to remove Windows.old & Error Reporting files?

[Alleged69]

When using VISTA's "Disk Cleanup for OS" tool I noticed on the Disk Cleanup
tab that the Windows.old file gobbles 15 GB of drive space (understandable)
and something labled "Per user queued Windows Error Reporting" gobbles
another 190 GB (outrageous)!!

What is this "Per user queued Windows Error Reporting" and why would the
tool indicate usage of 190 GB of drive space?

Is it safe to have Disk Cleanup free up (remove) either or both of these
memory hogs?

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

190 GB of drive space

**WARNING** The Disk Cleanup handler informaton in your system appears to be broken. Do NOT perform a cleanup now until you fix the Disk Cleanup handler registry values. See:

Serious Disk Cleanup problem caused by broken registration - The Winhelponline.com Blog:
http://www.winhelponline.com/blog/serious-disk-cleanup-problem-caused-by-broken-registration/

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows Shell/User]
Windows® Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com
Winhelponline.com blog http://www.winhelponline.com/blog


When using VISTA's "Disk Cleanup for OS" tool I noticed on the Disk Cleanup
tab that the Windows.old file gobbles 15 GB of drive space (understandable)
and something labled "Per user queued Windows Error Reporting" gobbles
another 190 GB (outrageous)!!

What is this "Per user queued Windows Error Reporting" and why would the
tool indicate usage of 190 GB of drive space?

Is it safe to have Disk Cleanup free up (remove) either or both of these
memory hogs?

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

You're welcome Alleged69! It's nice that you asked this question first before attempting to clear the WER logs using Disk Cleanup.

100 MB disk space consumption by WER logs is quite normal. The WER logs are stored in these locations, just in case you want to manually check:

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive
%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportQueue
%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive
%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportQueue

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows Shell/User]
Windows® Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com
Winhelponline.com blog http://www.winhelponline.com/blog


Dear Ramesh:

You-da-man! I followed your link and after running the cleanmgrfix.reg file
my Disc Cleanup results looked proper. Thanks.

However, I still don't know if it is safe or wise to remove the various
"archived" or "queued" "Windows Error Reporting" files which Disc Cleanup
still reports they together use about 100 MB of disc space. Not a lot but it
will probably grow over time. What are they and even if if I can safely
delete them, should I?

**WARNING** The Disk Cleanup handler informaton in your system appears to be broken. Do NOT perform a cleanup now until you fix the Disk Cleanup handler registry values. See:

Serious Disk Cleanup problem caused by broken registration - The Winhelponline.com Blog:
http://www.winhelponline.com/blog/serious-disk-cleanup-problem-caused-by-broken-registration/

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows Shell/User]
Windows® Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com
Winhelponline.com blog http://www.winhelponline.com/blog


When using VISTA's "Disk Cleanup for OS" tool I noticed on the Disk Cleanup
tab that the Windows.old file gobbles 15 GB of drive space (understandable)
and something labled "Per user queued Windows Error Reporting" gobbles
another 190 GB (outrageous)!!

What is this "Per user queued Windows Error Reporting" and why would the
tool indicate usage of 190 GB of drive space?

Is it safe to have Disk Cleanup free up (remove) either or both of these
memory hogs?