What can be deleted from the C drive, and what can not? How to clean local disk C from "garbage" effectively
In this article, we will look at various ways cleaning the disk and freeing up space on it in any Windows XP, 7, 8.1, 10 operating system.
1. Where does disk space go?
During the operation of the computer, system updates, installation of programs, visiting websites and other activities, a lot of unnecessary files accumulate on the disk, which are often called garbage or trash. In addition, we often download some files ourselves, and then, when they are no longer needed, we forget about them.
Extra files not only take up disk space, but also reduce system performance. The disk takes longer to search for the necessary files, and some of them may take up space in random access memory and use CPU resources. In addition, viruses often like to sit in temporary files.
For stable, fast and reliable operation computer, you need to keep the disk clean and tidy. Now there is also the problem of lack of space for SSD drives, which are very limited.
In this article, we will try to comprehensively solve the problem of lack of disk space. To achieve high results, we recommend that you read the article in full and follow all the tips in the order in which they are presented.
2. Removing unnecessary programs and games
First of all, remove all programs and games you no longer need. This will not only free up disk space, but also speed up the system.
Press the key combination "Win + R", enter "appwiz.cpl" and press "Enter" or use the "Uninstall programs" shortcut from the "" section.
In the window that opens, carefully review the list of programs and games you have installed and remove all that you are unlikely to use in the near future.
To uninstall a program, right-click on it and select Uninstall.
Don't delete anything you don't understand the purpose of, or if you're unsure.
After that, manually find and delete the save folders of deleted games, as they can take up a lot of space. It is easy to find out where the saves of a particular game are located by searching the Internet.
Many Online Games also save their distributions (installation packages) during updates that are no longer needed, but at the same time take up a lot of space. For example, the Mail.Ru game center saves distributions in the "Distrib" folder, and the "World of Tanks" game in the "Updates" subfolder. Files in such folders can take up tens of gigabytes and can be safely deleted.
3. Search and delete unnecessary files
It often happens that some old unnecessary files take up a lot of disk space, but we forgot about them and do not know where they are. In order to find them, I recommend using the TreeSize Free utility, which you can download in the "" section.
After launch, the program will scan your disk, determine the sizes of files, folders and sort them by size.
So it will be easy to determine in which folder the files that take up the most space are located. Delete any files you no longer need. If you think you might still need some of them, burn them to disk. The choice of a disk for scanning (C, D, etc.) is made in the "Scan" menu.
4. Transfer user files and folders
If you have a second disk or partition (for example, disk "D"), then first of all transfer all files from the user's desktop and folders such as "My Documents", "My Music", "My Videos", etc. to it ., since they are all physically located on the "C" drive.
You can move files manually by creating folders for them on another disk or partition in advance. But it is more correct to change the location of the user's folders using the operating system. Then all new files that you or any programs will save on the desktop and in user folders will automatically go to another disk partition without causing the system partition to overflow.
4.1. Transfer user folders in Windows 7, 8.1, 10
Navigate to the C:\Users\Name folder.
Right-click on the "My Documents" folder and go to the "Location" tab.
Change the drive letter to the one you want to move the folder to (for example, "D") and click OK.
Agree to move the files, and then repeat all the steps for the Desktop folder and the rest of the user's folders.
4.2. Transferring user folders in Windows XP
Windows XP does not have the function of automatically moving user folders and we will use the special XP Tweaker utility, which you can download in the "" section.
Install the utility and run it. Then, in the left pane, select the "Windows XP" section and go to the "System Folders" tab.
Select the "My Documents" folder with the mouse, change the drive letter to the one where you want to move the folder (for example, "D") and click the "Change" button.
Follow the same steps for the folders "My Pictures", "My Music", "Desktop".
After that, go to the folder "C:\Documents and Settings\Name".
And manually move the "My Documents" and "Desktop" folders to the new location "D:\Documents and Settings\Name".
5. Disk cleanup using Windows
All versions of Windows have a Disk Cleanup feature. With it, you can clean up any disk partition (C, D, etc.), but it is most effective for cleaning the system partition (drive "C"), since it is on it that most temporary files are stored.
Right-click on the "C" drive and select "Properties".
Click the "Disk Cleanup" button.
Click the "Clean up system files" button (in Windows 7, 8.1, 10).
Check all the boxes and you will see how much space will be freed up when deleting temporary files.
The volume of temporary files can reach 5-10 GB. Click the "OK" button and all temporary files will be deleted.
6. Deleting the hibernation file
The hibernation file (hiberfil.sys), which can be close to the size of RAM, is located on the "C" drive and is used for sleep mode. If you do not use this mode, but turn the computer on and off every time in the usual way, then this file can be safely deleted, since it takes up a lot of space.
The system will not allow you to delete this file manually, and even if you do it using a special utility for deleting files, the system will create it again. Therefore, in order to correctly delete the hibernation file, you need to disable sleep mode.
Launch command prompt as administrator and run the following command:
Powercfg -h off
After that, the system itself will delete this file and will no longer create it.
If you do not know how to work with the command line or do not want to bother, then you can download the "Delete the hibernation file" batch file in the "" section.
You just have to right-click on it and run it as Administrator (except for Windows XP).
7. Disable or resize the paging file
The paging file (pagefile.sys), which can be one and a half times the size of RAM, is located on the C drive and is used by many programs to compensate for the lack of RAM.
When enough large volume RAM and a small "C" drive (like an SSD), many enthusiasts advise disabling the paging file.
In the window that opens, go to the "Advanced" tab and in the "Performance" section, click the "Options" button.
In Performance Options, go to the Advanced tab and click the Change button.
Uncheck "Automatically select the size of the paging file", check the box "No paging file" and click "OK".
After restarting the computer, the paging file will be deleted and a lot of space will be freed up on the C drive.
But keep in mind that the system is tightly tied to the paging file, and some programs may not have enough even 8 GB of RAM. Therefore, out-of-memory errors may start to appear.
You can try to completely disable the swap file if you have 16 GB or more of RAM, but still I would not recommend doing this.
A-Data Ultimate SU650 120GB Hard Drive8. Disable System Restore
The restore service backs up system files and stores them in a special hidden folder that can take up a lot of disk space. At the same time, the built-in recovery tool does not always work correctly, and viruses like to hide in the backup folder.
Press the key combination "Win + R", enter "sysdm.cpl" and press "Enter" or use the "System Properties" shortcut from the "" section.
In the window that opens, go to the "System Protection" tab, select the "C" drive and click the "Configure" button.
Check the "Disable system protection" checkbox and click "OK".
After that, all backup copies of system files will be deleted and additional disk space will be freed up. In this way, you can free up 5-10 GB of valuable space on the "C" drive.
9. Disabling the Recycle Bin
You can disable the recycle bin on the C drive so that it does not take up space on it. To do this, right-click on the trash can icon and select "Properties".
Set the "C" drive to the "Destroy files immediately after deletion" option and click OK.
After that, if you delete large files from folders with game distributions or any others, they will not go to the trash and will not take up space on the C drive.
10. Clean up the backup storage
To clear the backup storage of system files in Windows 8, 8.1, 10, I recommend running the following command on the command line as Administrator.
Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup
For this purpose, you can also download the "Backup Storage Cleanup" batch file in the "" section and run it as Administrator.
11. Deleting temporary folders
You can painlessly delete temporary folders left after installing some drivers and programs:
C:\AMD C:\ATI C:\CONFIG.MSI C:\Intel C:\MSOCache C:\NVIDIA C:\SWSetup
12. Automatic cleaning and disk acceleration
For automatic cleaning disk from temporary files, there are special utilities. One of the best that I recommend is .
It can be set to clean up temporary files every time you boot your computer, which will keep the C drive free, and also give you a little extra protection, since temporary folders are a favorite place for viruses.
But it needs to be made competent setting, otherwise this utility will clean up not what you need, but what you need to delete will leave. Since the utility settings are quite extensive and it has many additional useful features, I decided to talk about it separately in the next article.
13. Links
A-Data Ultimate SU650 240GB Hard Drive
Hard Drive Transcend StoreJet 25M3 1TB
Hard drive Western Digital Caviar Blue WD10EZEX 1 TB
When operating a computer, quite often the user faces a problem when the system writes: “not enough space on drive C”. In no case should this message be ignored, and in most cases it will not be possible to ignore it (even if there is such a desire). The appearance of this warning is due to the contamination of the local disk C and requires immediate user intervention.
Sometimes the message that there is not enough disk space occurs due to incorrect sectoring on the hard disk, when too much is allocated for the local disk. small size. Especially often this situation occurs for users of Windows 7 and higher, as they habitually leave small volumes under the C drive, not taking into account the fact that new systems require much more space. If 30-40 GB was enough for Windows XP and programs, then for new versions of the shell program from Microsoft, it is advisable to double this amount, otherwise quite often you will have to solve the problem with the notification “not enough space on drive C”.
If there is little space allocated for the system, then it would be desirable to re-install and redistribute the space on the hard disk. If this is not possible (for example, office computer, which must not be “touched”) or the cause is clogging, a series of cleaning actions should be carried out.
First of all, you need to clean the system of everything that programs, browsers and Windows itself create. For these purposes, you can install any of the available free programs. Quite often, the amount of such “system garbage” reaches indecently large volumes, which provokes the appearance of the notification “not enough disk space”.
Then you should carefully review the download folders, documents and the desktop for old and already unnecessary files, images, etc. If in doubt, you can not delete them, but, for example, transfer them to another local disk with more space .
If the methods described above did not help and the system still complains that there is not enough disk space, then you will need to carefully check the installed programs. Some of them, for example, Photoshop, take up quite a lot of space and can be moved to another drive, which will not affect their operation, but will free up space for working with drive C. If obsolete and unnecessary programs, you should get rid of them.
In order to eliminate the notification "not enough disk space", you can perform some actions with the system, namely:
Turn off sleep mode;
In total, these two actions will give at least 4 GB free space. To turn off sleep mode, you need to select "Power Options" in the control panel. There you need to find "Monitor off settings". Then you should select the “never” option, which is responsible for transferring the computer to Then you need to open it (the “Win + R” combination) and write “powercfg - h off” there, confirming the action by pressing the “Enter” key.
To move, you should find the "Performance" item located in the system properties, which can be selected by right-clicking on the "My Computer" icon. There is the "Advanced" tab, on which you should open the "Options". Usually the system is automatically configured to reserve space on drive C. The user must remove this drive. To do this, you need to select it and set confirmation in the item "Without a paging file", confirming the actions by clicking the "Set" option. You can choose another drive and install the paging file on it. You will need to restart your computer for the changes to take effect.
In the life of every user, sooner or later there comes a moment when running out of free space on drive C and a similar message pops up. At the same time, the computer starts to slow down terribly, many programs do not work correctly, or do not work at all. It is advisable not to allow such a situation, but if it has befallen you, in this article I will tell you how to deal with it - free up space on the system drive without harming the system.
1. Windows temporary files
The first thing to do in such cases is to remove temporary Windows files. To do this, you need to delete all the contents of the folders:
\Temp
\WINDOWS\TEMP
for Windows XP:
\Documents and Settings\<имя_пользователя>\Local Settings\Temp
\Documents and Settings\<имя_пользователя>\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files
\Documents and Settings\<имя_пользователя>\Local Settings\History
for Windows 7, Vista :
\Users\<имя_пользователя>\AppData\Local\Temp
\Users\<имя_пользователя>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files
\Users\<имя_пользователя>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\History
In any "animal assembly" of Windows, the location of the temporary folder may differ. To find the temporary folder, do the following:
Start -> Run (Start> Run)(for Windows XP)
Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Run(for Windows 7, Vista)
In the Run window, in the Open field, enter the following text: %TEMP%
Click on the button OK«.
It is best to delete files using a file manager such as Total Commander because: a) the folder local settings usually hidden and the user may simply not find it; b) in a folder Temp There are several files that cannot be deleted because they are currently in use by the system. For Windows Explorer, this becomes an unsolvable task and it cannot completely empty the folder:
For Total Commander, both of these issues are no problem.
2. Windows update files
After operating system updates in the folder \WINDOWS\ many folders remain, the name of which begins with "$ ..." You can also delete them all:
3. Browser cache
Internet browsers Opera, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer (especially version 6) sometimes leaves behind a huge amount of garbage on the system disk, which is also sometimes useful to clean. It is done like this:
for Mozilla Firefox: Tools -> Erase Recent History. Select item "All", press "OK":
for Opera : Settings -> Delete personal data. You can expand the list Detailed setting", click" Delete«:
for chrome: Chrome menu (on the toolbar) -> Tools -> Delete browsing data. Select item " during all this time", press the button "Clear the history":
for internet explorer: Service -> Delete browsing history, or Service -> Internet Options ->
Are common ->
Browsing History ->
Delete button... 
In this way, you can clear drive C of several gigabytes of garbage, which consists mainly of many thousands of small (up to 10 kb) files, which can significantly slow down the work of browsers and the computer as a whole.
4. Downloads of browsers, torrent clients, DC, MediaGet, DownloadMaster, etc.
All these programs by default download files to the C drive, which very quickly leads to clogging. To prevent this, it is necessary in each such program to configure ways to save files from the Internet “not on drive C”.
for Mozilla Firefox: Tools -> Options -> General -> Path to save files:
for Opera : Settings -> Advanced -> Downloads - > Save uploaded files to:
for chrome: Chrome menu (on the toolbar) -> Preferences -> Advanced settings:
for uTorrent: Settings -> Program settings -> Folders
For other programs that download something from the Internet or local network the principle of setting is the same.
5. Databases of mail programs (TheBat, Mozilla Tunderbird, Microsoft Office Outlook, etc.)
With intensive exchange of information using mail programs, the size of their databases can grow to incredible sizes over time. It is advisable to take this moment into account at the stage of installing and configuring these programs, but if you have not done this, it does not matter, you can still fix it.
for TheBat: Drawer -> Properties mailbox-> Files and directories:
for Microsoft Office Outlook: Service -> Accounts Email-> View or change existing accounts-> Create Outlook Data File:
Check if everything is correct and delete at the same time junk file from the "C" drive here: Tools -> Options -> Mail settings-> Data files:
For other mail programs, everything is configured according to the same principles.
7. Temporary program files
Programs that work with large amounts of data, such as disc burning programs (eg Nero Burning ROM), video (eg Pinnacle Studio), audio editors, image processing programs (eg Adobe Photoshop) create temporary files during their work big size(the so-called "cache") and, if there is not enough free space for their creation, they refuse to work normally, various failures occur. To prevent this, it is necessary to transfer their temporary files to another disk in a timely manner:
Nero Burning ROM : File -> Presets -> Cache:
Pinnacle Studio : Settings -> Project Options:
Adobe Photoshop: Editing-> Settings -> Performance:
8. Games
From the very beginning of using a computer, you should make it a rule: “If possible, do not put games on drive “C”! Especially since modern games take up several DVDs, and after installation can take up several tens of gigabytes. After installing several of these games, free space on any disk will run out, no matter how big it is:
9. My Documents and Desktop
This problem has been going on since the earliest dinosaurs. Windows versions. 8 generations of the operating system have already changed, and user folders are still located on the system drive. Moreover, it got worse: starting with Windows Vista, additional folders were added to them, such as Pictures, Videos, Music, Downloads, Games, Contacts, Searches, Links ...
There is no standard procedure for transferring all user folders to another local drive either. There are only a few possibilities, for example, in Windows XP, you can transfer the My Documents folder:
Quite experienced and novice PC users have a bad habit of saving the necessary and most requested files on the desktop. A dozen or two gigabytes of information on the desktop - unfortunately, not at all uncommon! What can be advised? There is only one thing - to completely abandon the use of these "excellent opportunities" and store all important information NOT on drive C. Moreover, the probability of losing information stored on the “C” drive is much higher than on any other logical drive.
10. Programs
Browse the list installed programs and delete the ones you won't use anymore, especially the big ones:
11. Sleep mode
If it doesn't help much, disabling the use of sleep mode will save from 1 to 5 additional gigabytes.
for Windows XP: Start-> Control Panel -> Appearance and Themes -> Display -> Screensaver -> Power -> Sleep Mode. Uncheck " Allow sleep mode»
for Windows 7, Vista : Start -> Control Panel -> Power supply -> Setting up a power plan -> Put your computer to sleep -> « Never". You can also turn off the sleep function. Select "Change advanced power settings" and in the window find the sleep mode and turn it off. After disabling Hibernation, you can delete the hidden hiberfil.sys file in the root directory of the system drive. With the help, it is a little easier to do this: just enter the command " powercfg -hibernate -off«.
12. Other
Large files can also appear in any other place on the system disk, where you don’t expect to see it:
- log files of some programs can grow to many tens of gigabytes;
- one of the users can safely hide and forget the "video collection". Where is the best place to do it? Of course, somewhere in the wilds of system folders on drive "C";
- some program or plugin for Photoshop stores its database (10-100 GB in size) in a user folder;
In such cases, it is necessary to check the size of all folders (including hidden and system ones) and find the “culprit” by excluding them. With the help of the Total Commander program, this is again easier to do: it is enough to open folder press the key combination Ctrl + Alt + Enter and the size of all nested files and folders will appear at a glance:
Another case: the folder for temporary files of Avira antivirus has grown to an incredible 16 GB:
13. Basket
Emptying the Recycle Bin is a fairly obvious way to clean up disks from already deleted files, but sometimes quite a large number of files accumulate there, which also negatively affects the performance of the computer.
13. Program cleaners
There are a huge number of programs that promise by pressing one, maximum two buttons to solve all user problems with computer performance and raise it to unprecedented heights. As practice and common sense show, these programs can solve only some (or rather only 1, 2 and 3, and some other little things) from the problems described above, which in this particular case may well not be the most main problem. Although automating this process saves time: it is much faster to automatically delete temporary files than to clean them out manually. Standard program disk cleanup ( Start -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Disk Cleanup) is slightly worse than alternatives (eg Ccleaner).
14. What else is written on the "Internet"
There are just as many tales, myths, unverified facts and outright disinformation on "our internets". These, in my opinion, include:
- deleting, resizing, transferring the paging file;
- deleting backup copies of system files, drivers;
- removal or modification of operating system components;
- removal of duplicate operating system files;
- formatting drive C.
It is not advisable to touch the components of the operating system without a clear understanding of what exactly you are doing and why.
15. Summary
Long gone are the days when Windows, a bunch of programs and a lot of data were placed in a 1 GB hard drive, and at the same time managed to work and play games. The amount of memory for hard drives the average user has already crossed the mark of several Terabytes, but the problems remain the same. Well, artificial intelligence will not soon replace experience and common sense. Keep an eye on the free space - for the comfortable operation of the operating system, it should be at least not less than 1/3 of the disk capacity, or not less (and preferably more) several gigabytes. The final chord of this work to achieve more best result, it is necessary to carry out .
Hard disks getting bigger and bigger, but somehow they always fill up. This is especially noticeable if you are using a Solid State Drive (SSD), which offers much more less space on a hard drive than traditional mechanical hard drives.
Empty trash
Rice No. 1. Empty trash.When you delete items such as files and photos from your computer, they are not immediately deleted. Instead, they are placed in the trash and continue to take up valuable hard drive space. To empty the Recycle Bin, go to your desktop, right-click on the Recycle Bin and select Empty Recycle Bin. A warning pop-up will appear if you are sure you want to permanently delete the contents of the Recycle Bin. Click "Yes" to continue.
Disk Cleanup
Windows has a built-in Disk Cleanup utility (properly called Disk Cleanup) that will help you clean up space by deleting various files, including temporary internet files, system error dump files, and even previous ones. Windows installation, which may still be on your drive.
Rice #2. Disk cleanup. You can find Disk Cleanup in the Start menu under All Apps > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Cleanup. Select the drive you want to clean up, click OK.
Click the Disk Cleanup button in the disk properties window.
Rice No. 3.0. Disk cleanup. After clicking on the "Clean Disk" button of the Disk Cleanup program, calculate how much space you can free up. This process can take from a few seconds to several minutes. In general, the more cluttered HDD, the longer it takes to scan.
Fig No. 3.1. Place rating. Select the file types you want to delete and click OK. This includes temporary files, log files, files in the recycle bin, and other unimportant files. When you're ready, click OK to delete. Make sure you check the boxes for each of the file categories you want to clear. Confirm that you want to delete these files.
You can also clean up system files that are not listed here. Click clean up system files button if you also want to delete system files.
Rice No. 4. Clean up system files. Wait while Disk Cleanup calculates how much space you can free up. This process can take from a few seconds to several minutes. In general, the more cluttered the hard drive is, the longer it takes to scan.
Rice No. 5. Place rating. After that, you will have an "Advanced" tab in which you can clear "System Restore and Shadow Copy" to remove system data recovery. This button deletes everything but the most recent restore point, so make sure your computer is working properly before using it - you won't be able to use old system restore points.
Rice No. 6. Free up additional disk space. You can also clear "Programs and Features" by clicking on the top "Clear" button shown in Figure #6, or go to the following path "Start">"Control Panel"> "Programs and Features" or "Uninstall Programs".
The following window will open in which you can remove all unused or unnecessary programs.
Rice No. 7. Removing programs. Wait until the list of all programs installed on your computer is updated. Look for programs that take up a lot of space and are not used at all. Select the program and click the Uninstall button.
Expand drive "C" with drive "D" without third-party software.
This method is only suitable if you do not have important data on the “d” drive and you can format it all. Open Management Windows disks. Press the key combination “Win + R” on the keyboard, we will see the “Run” window, type in the command “diskmgmt.msc” and press the Enter key.
In the window that opens, we tear out the disk on which there is no necessary information and right-clicking the properties window will open where you need to select "Delete volume".
After that, free space will appear in which you need to delete partitions to expand the "C" drive, right-click on the free space and select "Delete Partitions".
The Expand Volume Wizard will open, allowing you to increase the size of simple or spanned volumes. Click the Next button. In the next window, you need to select the size by which you can increase the "C" drive. Next, click the “next” button and “ready”. And we see that there is more space on the C drive.
Next, you need to create new disk D. Right-click on "Unallocated", select "create new volume... "> "Next", select the size of the disk "D"> "Next"> Select the drive letter, "Next" > "Next" > "Ready".
Video how to increase disk C
In this article, we will look at how to clear the C:\ drive in the Windows 7 operating system and increase the amount of free space on it for the normal functioning of the system.
The article will consist of two parts: the first for beginners, the second for more advanced users.
So let's go.
I do computer repair. And quite often they bring a computer with the problem "Not enough space on the system disk." Due to the congestion of the system disk, the following problems arise: some programs do not start, video in the browser does not load, general system slowdown, etc. This is due to the fact that many programs need space for storing temporary files, and there is simply no space on the disk . If you start to get a message that there is not enough space on the system disk, and your hand began to control the mouse in search of a shortcut to CCleaner or a similar program, then raise your other hand higher and hit yourself on the first. I strongly do not recommend using such programs, because more than once I had to restore the OS after the actions of this program.
Let's look at other ways we can free up free space on the system drive.
The first step is to transfer data (photos, videos, music, etc.) to the second disk. Since the “Desktop” and the “My Documents” folders are physically located on the system drive (I will write the C:\ drive further, since basically everyone has the C:\ system drive), so to free up space, you need to transfer user data to the second section. In order to make it easier to copy data from the desktop, go along the path C:\Users\%Username%\Desktop, select the “Table” view, filter by type. Next, press Ctrl + X or right-click "Cut", then go to the second disk, create a folder and paste all the data into it Ctrl + V. Next, go to My Documents and in the same way transfer everything from the folders "My Pictures", "My Videos", "My Music". Do not forget to look into the "Downloads" or "Downloads" folders, from there we either move everything to the second disk, or, if the downloaded files are unnecessary, we simply delete them (For complete removal from the computer, select and press the key combination Shift+DEL if you just click DEL, then the files will be deleted to the recycle bin, which is also located on the C:\ drive). Also in the "My Documents" folder, you can find many folders with the names of games - you can not touch them, most often saved games are stored there and they do not take up much space. Next, go to the "Cart" and click the "Empty Cart" button.
Step two - delete temporary files. As applications run, they create temporary files that are necessary for normal operation. These files are created in the folder TEMP, which is located along the path C:\Windows\Temp and should be automatically deleted when the application ends, but this does not always happen. So let's go to the folder. TEMP select all (Ctrl+A) and click Shift+DEL. If some files are necessary for the application to work at this particular moment, then Windows will not allow them to be deleted. You can also clear TEMP via function "Disk Cleanup", but more on that later.
The third step is to clear the cache of browsers. In each browser, the cache is cleared from different menu items, you can find how to clear the cache of your particular browser using Google. Most importantly, when cleaning Cache, do not forget to uncheck the saved form data, cookies, saved passwords, etc. Otherwise, after clearing the cache, you will have to re-enter all passwords on sites.
The fourth step is Disk Cleanup. To use the Disk Cleanup feature in Windows 7, go to "My Computer", right-click on the desired disk, select the "Properties" menu item and click the "Disk Cleanup" button. We will see the following window.
Upon completion of the evaluation of free space, a window will appear where you can tick the items necessary for deletion. Then click "OK" and click the "Delete Files" button. We are waiting for the removal and that's it.
The fifth step is to remove unnecessary programs. We go to "Start" - "Control Panel" - item "Programs" - "Uninstall programs". A list of installed programs will load. You can filter them by size and remove the ones you don't use (modern games are especially large).
Important: If you do not know the purpose of any programs, then it is better not to touch them or useGoogle in order to understand what kind of program it is and whether it can be deleted!
act six- clean temporary folder Temp V ApplicationData. The AppData folder is hidden by default. To see hidden folders, go to Start - "Control Panel" - "Small Icons" view - "Folder Options" - "View" tab - and put a marker next to the inscription "Show hidden files, folders and drives".
After we go along the path C:\Users\%Username%\AppData\Local\Temp . Here we select all the files and folders and then click Shift+Del. The data that is currently in use cannot be deleted, so just click the "Skip" button.
These were the ways to clean up the disk for novice users in the continuation of the article, we will look at ways to free up free space for more advanced users, although they are not very complicated.
The second part will be to disable not all desired functions operating room Windows systems 7, as well as in reconfiguring some parameters.
The first point is to disable hibernation.
Hibernation is a mode of the computer operating system, saving the contents of RAM on a non-volatile storage device before shutting down. That is, in fact, this is a mode in which everything that was running on the computer from RAM is reloaded onto the HDD, and after exiting hibernation, we get running programs and a working operating system. To implement this function, the operating system reserves on the hard disk an amount approximately equal to the amount of RAM. Personally, I never liked this mode because exiting it was previously accompanied by failures in the operating system, so I advise you to turn it off (especially if you have a lot of RAM and little space on the C:\ drive). To disable hibernation, click Start - Run and write the cmd command (the command line will start). On the command line, write powercfg.exe /hibernate off. After restarting the computer, you will see the freed space on the system drive.
Or you can go to "Start" - "Control Panel" - "Power Options" - "Setting up a power plan" - "Change power settings" - we find the item "Sleep", open it, the item "Hibernation after" enter the value "0".
Point two - transfer or disable the paging file.
The paging file is a special disk space that is reserved by the system and, in the event of a lack of RAM, is used to store temporary data. The space for the paging file is located on the C:\ drive and, if necessary, it can be moved to a second drive. If you have a large amount of RAM (from 6 GB), then the paging file can be disabled altogether. To transfer or disable the paging file, right-click on "My Computer" - "Properties" - "Advanced system settings" - the "Advanced" tab - the "Performance" section - the "Settings" button.
Here you can change the location of the paging file or specify the size of the paging file "0" and put the marker "no paging file" to disable it.
Point three - transfer the Temp folder.
In order for the temporary folder not to grow on the system disk again, it can be moved to the second disk.
Point four - delete restore points.
In order to delete all restore points, go to "Start" - "Control Panel" - "System" - click "System Protection".
Press the "Setup" button.
In the window that opens, click the "Delete" button opposite the inscription "Delete all restore points, including system settings and previous versions of files."
To delete all restore points except the last one, go to "Disk Cleanup" as in the first part of the article, go to the "Advanced" tab. Near the inscription "System Restore and Shadow Copy", click the "Clear" button and in the window that appears, click the "Delete" button.
I also recommend checking for old copies of Windows 7. Starting with Windows Vista, it became possible to install a new operating system on the same partition as the old one. As a result, after installing new operating systems on the C:\ drive, folders appear in the root directory Windows.old. We go into this folder (or if you have several of them, then in each turn), transfer important information from Documents and Settings and from the Desktop, and then delete the entire folder.
It seems that these are all the main ways to clean up the C:\ drive. After completing all the steps, I was able to free up to half the capacity on the system drive. If you have any other ways - write in the comments.
Thank you all for your attention, good luck in setting up your computers.
