Windows XP growing

[Arijit/Mac/Jeet]

Hi,

I installed Windows XP SP2 Pro with all updates and patches.

Initially, it was only taking about 1.5 GB of space but then it has started
growing in size and now occupies 4.5 GB.

I have cleaned C: and there is no junk or temp files.

How can I stop this from happenning and free up disk space?

Someone please help!!1

 

[Guest]

Most likely culprit is System Restore, which stores large amounts of data in
a "system state" folder in the root of C. This folder is hidden so Explorer
won't show it unless you change its defaults.

You can remove this folder without ill effect, though you will of course
lose all of the historical restore-points. Alternatively you can go into the
System control-panel and limit the space that System Restore is allowed to
use. The latter is probably a better course as having a few restore-points is
a handy precaution against trouble.

The swapfile, hibnernation file and recycle bin will also consume space, but
not be (directly) visible in Explorer. The temp folder (in your userprofile)
may also have accumulated a lot of temporary files that should have been
removed by the app that created them, but weren't.

Hope this gives a few hints as to where to check.

 

[gs]

Ian suggestions should help you reduce the "growth". and are excellent.

however I like to point out in my experience 4.5 GB is really nothing much
to worry about. here is why
for 512MB RAM system for XP PRO
1 GB swapfile
1 GB hibernate file
1 GB windows
1 GB PROGRAM FILES(maybe only 0.75 if you have very little
applications installed)
whatever in documents and settings
that would be close to 4.5 GB. More you download music and video


XP home may have less - I am not qualified to say much about it - I don't
use it, I don't install that.

 

[Arijit/Mac/Jeet]

My "Documents & Settings" are on a different Drive so is my "Swap" file. I have 1.25 GB of RMA. But the diskspace that I mentioned is excluding that. Also, I do not use "System Restore" at all. I disable it the moment I install Windows XP SP2.

Any other suggestions?

 

[London]

Any other suggestions?

If 4.5gb is a problem - buy a new HD.

 

[gs]

no restore/checkpoint? hope you do your own backup/image frequently.

if you are concerned about making direct ASR on DVD then there is one way to shrink it down, install next no application(( and instead of updating from original CD via internet, update with sp2 first then rest through internet via the Microsoft update. that will give a clean size of about 3GB in C excluding hibernation, pagefile.

And if your PC is not laptop, you may be able to use standby and hence saving space from disabling hibernation. Standby is a lot faster for me in case of my PC when I need to use PC


BTW you install some application of another drive so it does not use so much space on C but your %windir% and %programfiles% will still grow albeit slower.

even 8 GB can still be handled by DL DVD or external USB drive unless we are talking about many Virtual machine copy that we need to worry overall disk space?
My "Documents & Settings" are on a different Drive so is my "Swap" file. I have 1.25 GB of RMA. But the diskspace that I mentioned is excluding that. Also, I do not use "System Restore" at all. I disable it the moment I install Windows XP SP2.

Any other suggestions?

 

[Guest]

Your problem is probably programs installing their files in C:\WINDOWS. For
some reason, many programs scatter their files across the hard disk,
especially in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32. There is probably no way to prevent them
from doing this.