Vista eats up disk space

Question

After I'd finished installing all my programs on this new computer, I had a good 12 GB of free disk space. Over the last few weeks I've watched my free disk space steadily declining. Earlier this week it was 6 GB. Today, without downloading anything in the interim or installing any programs, I've been getting low disk space warnings of only 4 MEGAbytes free. What is going on??? This is a horrid bug. I think I might just wipe Vista away and install XP. Can I use the Vista license key on the bottom of this laptop to install XP? And will this laptop work with XP?

Darrel112 · Answer

Recommended freespace available for Vista is 40 gigs. If you have a 20 gig hard drive forget it.

gdwrnch3 · Answer

The space is taken up by system restore. Do this, Open my computer, right click on your c drive, click properties, click on Disk Cleanup, on the next window, 'Disk cleanup for C', on the top, click the 'more options' tab, at the bottom, under 'system restore and shadow copies', click clean up, on the next window that opens, click 'delete', then click 'ok' , then click 'delete files' again, and you will get back all of your lost space... Enjoy, jd

gfunkdave · Answer

Did I say anything about a 20 GB drive? I have a brand new Latitude with an 80 GB drive. Space is disappearing. Why?

gfunkdave · Answer

Thanks for the tip! That freed up about 1.5 GB. NOw how do I get the remaining 10 Gb back?

gdwrnch3 · Answer

Don't know what to tell you. That usually frees up about 10 gigs for me.

icedust · Answer

you should read this http://www.vista4beginners.com/System-Restore-Space-Used Message Edited by icedust on 04-01-2007 05:46 PM

gfunkdave · Answer

Odd...I restarted and suddenly I had 19.6GB free. Thanks for the help!

steve7857 · Answer

This is was very helpful to me thanks. I have the sony ux hand held pc with vista and it only has a 40 gig hd. I have been loosing space and could not figure out why. But got it all back thanks again.

gdwrnch3 · Answer

Click everyones files, and continue till you see this window:

farbuncle · Answer

When I click on disk cleanup a box comes up with only two options. My files or everyones file. There are no more options tab. What's up?   home premium.

farbuncle · Answer

Thanks!

mexicorider · Answer

Yes, thanks guys.

But I have a bit different question/problem:

supposedly Vista takes up 7 GB of disk space (according to articles like this one: http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=30128 )

Lets even give it the benefit of a generous 10 GB; my clean install recently of Vista Ultimate occupied 12 GB, and even that was okay with me.

But now I've had to format and reinstall Vista again over the weekend, and it's taking over 20 GB !!! I've re-done it, three times, and the result is always the same.

I just can't figure it out. I do Disk Cleanups, restore-point cleanups, anythng I can think of.

This 20.4 GB is of course without any programs installed, only what Vista installed with a CLEAN install (not upgrade). before updates!

Anyone have any suggestion why this is, or how I can determine what is taking up all this space??

Paging file, by the way, is consistently the same: 1.8 GB.

Other thing: Windows Experience Index has consistently dropped after almost each re-install; It used to be 3.5, then dropped to 3.0, now it's 2.7. I re-run the Refresh and nothing changes. (the 2.7 is the Graphics number: the rest are 4.5 to 5.5)

This is a fairly new laptop, with 2 GB RAM, 2.16 dual processor, 256MB graphics card, etc. I don't see any reason why the Windows Experience Index should be dropping just because of reinstalls.

Any thoughts?

Thanks.

(note: I may post seperately in other forum about these two seperate problems)

Message Edited by mexicorider on 07-30-2007 07:27 PM

Windows General

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