On Wed, 27 Apr 2005 13:13:57 -0700, "Milenka"
I did everything you said (disactivating hibernation, removing apps, reducing
the size of the System restore disk) and gained about 600 kb. Good, but not
enough to keep downloading stuff on drive D for my work if if affects the C
Drive too. My total C drive capacity is 13.9 GB (I have 883 MB left) and my D
drive total capacity is 91.8 GB with 35 GB left.
I routinely run systems with 7.99G C:, so it's possible.
Firstly, are you using NTFS? If so, do this:
- rt-click C:, Properties, note free and used capacities
- select all in C: in rt-pane, rt-click Properties, disk space used
- if there's a big difference, suspect hogs within ADS
- if so, use ADS Spy to detect ADS (ab)use
The usual suspects:
1) IE web cache
Each user account has it's own web cache, and by duuuhhfault this will
be some enormous size. As the files in the cache are tine, even more
size is lost via cluster bloat (yes, even with 4k clusters).
Go into each user profile, run IE, clear the wretched cache, and set
it to something sensible, like 20M (Dial-Up) or down to 1M (bband).
2) CD burning workspace
If you use XP's built-in CD writing, then what you thought was on CDR
disks may be hanging around in a workspace on C:, which is once again
repeated per user profile. Hunt down and clear out these workspaces,
and ideally disable (native XP) recording in the writer's Properties
and use bundleware such as Nero and InCD instead.
3) Temp files
These accumulate within the Local Settings\Temp or each user account.
After making sure no software installs or patches are pending, you can
clear these out. Once again you have to repeat this for every user
account, and it helps if Windows Explorer is de-lamered (i.e. set to
show full paths, file name extensions, all files, etc.)
4) MSware email data stores
Outbreak stores all material in one enormous .PST, whereas OE stores
each mailbox (containing all those unsolicited malware attachments) in
a separate mailbox file within the mail data location. These mail
stores are on C: by duhfault and can bloat up quite quickly.
Moving Outbreak's .PST is something I'm not familiar with; may be
tricky. Hopefully someone who uses Outbreak will reply to explain how
to do this; personally, I avoid using the app alltogether.
Moving OE's mail is easier. First, create the path you want to store
the mail data in, of a HD volume other than C:. Next, run OE and go
Tools, Options, Maintenace tab and change the Store location to point
to the path you created. Then exit and restart OE, and it will do the
work of moving the stuff over; then compact the mail.
As usual, you may have to repeat this for each user account.
5) Relocating various "My..." ghettos
Each user account has a "My Documents" object nested within "Documents
and Settings", and within this are "My Music", "My Pictures" and -
once you use an app that spawns this - "My Videos".
Because C: is constantly subjected to file system writes, you may want
to locate your data off C:, and if you want to backup your data set
easily, you may want to move the often-huge "My Music", "My Pictures"
and "My Videos" out of the data set.
The easy way to do this is by navigating into your account's subtree
within "Documents and Settings" and use the right mouse button to drag
these folders from where they are to somewhere on another HD volume.
Choose "Move" when the context menu pops up, and then rename to taste.
Usually, these changes will be tracked by the registry.
Repeat for each user account, as usual.
You can also use TweakUI for XP to set new shell folder paths, and
then manually move the contents. You may even have to get dirty
within Regedit to enforce these changes and retro-fit them to
installed applications that have their own data path settings.
6) "Program Files"
By now, the total size of "Documents and Settings" should have shrunk
to something less disgusting, and the easy stuff is over.
Right-click "C:\Program Files", Properties; how big is it? If it's
big, see which apps are big, and consider uninstalling these apps and
re-installing them off C: (choose Custom to get the choice).
7) Windows subtree
There's not much you can do yo make the Windows subtree smaller. The
only "soft target" here is accumulated Undo material for service packs
and patches. Sometimes the installation will offer the chance to
locate this material off C: (SP2 does, if you go Custom of course) and
sometimes you can clear this material via Add/Remove.
All of this "user profile" stuff is far more difficult than it should
be, especially when you consider that any new accounts created will
start off with MS duhfaults and require you do the work all over
again. It's such a PITA that I don't use multiple user accounts.
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Gone to bloggery:
http://cquirke.blogspot.com
Do you have software installed that has a "secondary recycle