So Much Disk Space

[Don]

I bought a new HP laptop last week. This is the first time I used
VISTA. I'm shocked just how much disk space all the software is using,
approximately 40 gigabytes on the C drive and 9 gigabytes on the
recovery partition. They put a lot of junk-ware on this thing. But I
removed as much as I could. But of 137 gigabytes of disk space on C,
there is only 96.1 gigabytes free. The C drive on my XP Pro desktop
only has about 20 gigabytes of used disk space allocated with a lot more
software installed. And the laptop is only using the home version. Is
there any way to free up more space?

Also if I were to reinstall VISTA from the recovery disks, would all
that evaluation-ware also be reinstalled?

Thanks.

 

[Cari \(MS-MVP\)]

Use of the Recovery disks would reinstall all the junk you just uninstalled.

Vista doesn't use up 40gb so you must still have a lot of bloatware on
there.... if you have not uninstalled a Symantec or Norton product, that's
going to be some of it, a good antivirus software doesn't take up much at
all, I use NOD32v (www.eset.com) and it takes up 24mb in Program Files.
Microsoft Office takes up only 509mb. My Windows folder takes up just under
14gb.

 

[Paul Montgomery]

Also if I were to reinstall VISTA from the recovery disks, would all
that evaluation-ware also be reinstalled?

Absolutely.

You could create a recovery DVD from the files in that partition and
then do away with the partition completely if you like.

Check your system for instructions on how to create that disc.

 

[Don]

That exercise just liberated 17 gigabytes of disk space believe it or
not. No doubt there is more unwanted software on this machine that I
could get rid of.