My Windows XP SP2 is to big

[Adi]

Hi, experts!

My disk C: give me a message about low disk space (under 200 MB) but my
directory Windows XP SP2
is now 10.6 Gb and I think that is too big. What's wrong with Windows XP, I
think that normal size cannot be over 2 GB.

(e-mail address removed)

 

[All Things Mopar]

Today Adi commented courteously on the subject at hand

Hi, experts!

My disk C: give me a message about low disk space (under
200 MB) but my directory Windows XP SP2
is now 10.6 Gb and I think that is too big. What's wrong
with Windows XP, I think that normal size cannot be over 2
GB.

(e-mail address removed)

You've made a ton of assumptions here. A big part of the total
is likely to be in the hidden folder where Restore Points are
stored and another hidden folder where Internet Explorer stores
its off-line content. The latter can be cleaned up within IE.
The former can be cleaned up by turning off, then turning back
on, RPs. Before you play with RP, though, be sure your system is
100% stable and you don't need to roll it back for any reason
any time soon.

You don't mention the apps you have. Are you including them in
the 10.6 gig, or just the size of the Windoze folder?

On my system, only 2.7 gig is taken up by Windoze itself, and
another 5.3 gig by RPs. Of the 2.7, about 500 meg is for the SP1
backup that got created when I upgraded to SP2. That leaves
about 8 gig for my apps. I regularly clean the temp files and
don't store any data at all on my C: partition, other than what
apps require me to do. I also don't store anything in My
Documents, which is really on C:\

So, please clarify what you mean and how you measured it.

 

[Yves Leclerc]

Hi, experts!

My disk C: give me a message about low disk space (under 200 MB) but my
directory Windows XP SP2
is now 10.6 Gb and I think that is too big. What's wrong with Windows XP, I
think that normal size cannot be over 2 GB.

(e-mail address removed)

You need 5GB for XP??? The folder may include several "temp" files and the
virtual memory page file.

 

[AllenM]

Well 10GB for Windows is rather large. Of course you need to get into
Windows and see what is taking up most of the disk space. I suggest a
freeware directory size program such as TreeSize. This will give you the
directory and folder sizes and from there you can decide what is needed and
what can go. For starters I would check the Temp and Download Program Files
folders.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

My disk C: give me a message about low disk space (under 200 MB) but
my directory Windows XP SP2
is now 10.6 Gb and I think that is too big. What's wrong with Windows
XP, I think that normal size cannot be over 2 GB.

Although 10.6GB is on the high side, it isn't true that "normal size cannot
be over 2 GB." My Windows folder here is about 3.5GB.

What's the total size of C:? Is it NTFS or FAT32.?

 

[WTC]

Hi, experts!

My disk C: give me a message about low disk space (under 200 MB) but my
directory Windows XP SP2
is now 10.6 Gb and I think that is too big. What's wrong with Windows XP,
I think that normal size cannot be over 2 GB.

How much disk space are these two directories?

"c:\windows\temp"
and
"c:\windows\downloaded installations"

Have you installed Service Pack 2?
This will add another 1/2 to 3/4 of a Gigabyte to the Windows folder due to
the addition of the "ServicePackFiles" folder.