Get Back Lots Of Disk Space - Windows XP/Vista MCE (Media Centre Edition)

So, some of you might know about this already but, anyways...

The other day I was trying to install a game but did not have the necessary disk space, so I deleted files that I will not use, and other files that I do not need... I compressed some files that I might use later in the future... And just doing that got me back around two to three gigabytes of free hard disk space...

But that's not enough, the game needed 6 gigabytes of free disk space! So what did I do next? I ran CCleaner... It took a while yes, but soon it free'd another 2 gigabytes...

ARRGH! Still another gigabyte to go before the game can be installed! So I was "perusing" around my hard drive and checking file sizes... And I came up to this particular folder...

which should be

[WINDOWS INSTALLATION DRIVE]:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Shared Documents\

Which when left to default should be

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Shared Documents\

I went inside the folder...

and WHAT?! There's about an entire gigabyte of things I never need in there!

ARRGH! Recorded TV, Shared Music, Shared Video, Shared Pictures!

What were Microsoft thinking when they put this stuff in?

So I deleted all of it! Well, almost all of it, I left the "Shared Pictures" folder alone, as personally, I like them...

So a step to step process of getting disk space that Microsoft has used without you knowing...

1. Go through your Hard Drive and delete all files that you no longer need...
2. Compress files that you might need, but won't be using them anytime soon...
3. Run CCleaner, URL is http://www.ccleaner.com/
4. You should also try to run Windows Disk Cleaner, just in case you want to delete Windows System Restore Points except the last one
5. Delete what you don't need in the "Shared Documents" folder (which usually is, everything!)

and BAM! you've reclaimed so many disk space especially if you're using a hard drive with pretty low space (i.e. me )

Good luck clearing out unecessary files!

 

 

 

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thanks for the info.
I would reco ppl have a hdd and store files, rather then zipping them up.
Juz my 2 CENTS

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Oh yeah, just to add something extra...

For compressing files, I would recommend Zip, or RAR for normal files, lots of small files, or maybe practically anything... But if you're unsure on if you're going to use a program/movie/game etc, I would recommend that you compress it using an EXTREMELY efficient compressing program...

That program is called UHARC, it is command-line based, but for those who aren't familiar with command-line based applications, use WinUHA (which is basically UHARC with a GUI, a bit less compressing efficiency...)

They can compress things like ZIP and/or RAR (but the only bad thing about it, is it's like an SFX archive, you can only unzip the entire directory stored in the compressed file), but if you're patient (or maybe, you have an abnormally fast computer) try compressing your files with UHARC on highest priority, with the largest dictionary and all that, and you should be able to compress a file like 1GB down to something like 120MB, but the primary problem with this, is it'll take almost twice as long to decompress, so only use UHARC/WinUHA to compress files that are abnormally large and you might not need in the near future

 

 

 

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well I store install files on a memory stick and then unistall programs that i won't use for a while! that usually clears some space!

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Using a memory stick or a CD might sound like a good idea, but essentially it's not. CD's have problems keeping thier data secure, and memory sticks are easy to lose, plus its hard to know where things are put, on which stick, and it's also somewhat slow.

There's nothing better then buying another hard drive for backup at these days. They are getting cheaper as the days go on, for now.

$145 (AUS) for a 500gb drive? That's just a steal!

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O there are also some other things that you might wanted to mention. Like there is temp folder and this folder should be cleared also since there are many reasons and many programs do not clean it nicely. Liek when you install some new software and it is using temporary folder then it might just happen if the software wasn't written correctly that it will leave all the files in the temporary folder. And over time one way or the other there will be many files. This was problem especially on the Windows 98 but nodays they have mostly corrected it however there are still some issues. Also after you delete this folder there might be need to restart computer since some programs you might have running are using something there and then they will crash. And one more thing do not delete folder itself but rather its contents.

Now I have went to check my temp folder it is usually located here: C:\Windows\Temp and there were 10 GB of data there. Also one other thing I am using Windows Vista.

And one more thing to mention you should also try to defragment you hard drive since if you do so your computer might tend to run faster and there might be some mroe fresh clean space lost in indexes.

Good luck

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This tutorial really helped me out. I checked inside my shared folder guess how much waste gigs there was in there? 56 GB of wasted spaces. outrageous. It's been there for about 2 years. I have Windows XP Media edition. When we got this computer first I was obsessed with recording stuff on the television. This came to, in total, 56 GB. My computer is so much more faster now.

Really, thank you.

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That is one of the reasons why i use linux. You know everything what happens in your PC. In the other hand with Microsoft Windows you dont know what the operating system is doing and why is taking so much resources.
Anyway good tutorial.

Regards

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