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Rheghead
31-Aug-06, 08:55
I have looked at the memory that my Windows are taking up on my hard drive. I was shocked to find that it takes up a whopping 3GB!!! Is this right or is it accumumulating lots of files that I don't need? I have deleted all the temporary internet files and cookies so that can't be it. In fact doing that never seems to make any difference now with these big hard drives. My docs only take up 0.7GB. I have deleted a lot of the big programs that I never use anymore. My hard drive is 18GB but I have only 3 GB left, I feel like a big fat lazy dog is slowly edging me out of my own bed!:eek: :)

Ricco
31-Aug-06, 09:08
HI, Rheghead.

These days hard drives are huge - 80 Gb being considered standard by many. I would suggest that you get a new HD - try here (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/).

You can get a SATA Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 80Gb for £34.02 incl VAT. Keep your old HD in there as second device. You can re-install Windows and your other software or 'ghost' the contents of the old drive across to the new one.

Hope this helps.

PS With the power and versatility of modern Windows it is going to be big.

PPS I would like to know whether all these files that Windows creates over time are actually necessary.

Bobinovich
31-Aug-06, 10:05
I have looked at the memory that my Windows are taking up on my hard drive. I was shocked to find that it takes up a whopping 3GB!!! Is this right or is it accumumulating lots of files that I don't need? I have deleted all the temporary internet files and cookies so that can't be it. In fact doing that never seems to make any difference now with these big hard drives. My docs only take up 0.7GB. I have deleted a lot of the big programs that I never use anymore. My hard drive is 18GB but I have only 3 GB left, I feel like a big fat lazy dog is slowly edging me out of my own bed!:eek: :)

It might be worth checking to see if Windows is controlling your virtual memory automatically or if it's set to manual with too high a value. To do this click Start > Control Panel > d/click System then click the Advanced tab > 1st Settings button > Advanced button & then Change button.

There you should be able to see if your settings are set to custom, system managed or no paging file. If it's system managed then it's not virtual memory which is taking up your drive space and you can cancel out of the various screens. If it's set to custom then you can either post the figures and let us see what they are or can just click the system managed option then click Set and OK out of the screens (and restart your computer if requested).

Let's know how you get on.

Rheghead
31-Aug-06, 10:17
It might be worth checking to see if Windows is controlling your virtual memory automatically or if it's set to manual with too high a value. To do this click Start > Control Panel > d/click System then click the Advanced tab > 1st Settings button > Advanced button & then Change button.

There you should be able to see if your settings are set to custom, system managed or no paging file. If it's system managed then it's not virtual memory which is taking up your drive space and you can cancel out of the various screens. If it's set to custom then you can either post the figures and let us see what they are or can just click the system managed option then click Set and OK out of the screens (and restart your computer if requested).

Let's know how you get on.

Thanks Bobinovich, it is set to 360mb min and 720mb max, the recommended is 1125mb, miniumum allowed is 2mb, currently allocated is 360mb.

would it be better to set to System managed? Cheers

EDIT, or I just had a look at the User profiles and my wife's takes up a mere 10mb but mine takes up 1.5GB!! I don't think it should be this high?

blueivy
31-Aug-06, 12:08
Hi Rheghead,

Set your Virtual Memory to System Managed, click all the OK's and reboot when requested. You can gain more performance by setting it manually but it's so small it makes little difference on a desktop PC so always use System Managed.

Your profile is 1.5Gb - that my be right. If your 700Mb of documents are in the My Documents folder than that's nearly half of that space. Depending on how much email you keep and what other apps you use it could well be normal. My current profile size is 1.7Gb here and I don't keep any huge files in there - it's a collection of small docs, email PST's, lots of applications data etc. My suggestion is just to go through the folders in yoru profile and find out which ones are the biggest (right click on the folder and select Properties and wait until the number of files stops ticking up) and keep drilling down until you find the culprit folder or files. If you're not sure if you should delete something, DON'T! Ask here first. If you delete the wrong thing it could cause a lot of problems.

I would agree with Ricco though, I'd look at buying a new hard drive. You're going to keep having this space problems if you have 18Gb - that's just not enough these days. The first PC I had came with a 40Mb hard drive and that was plenty .... I have Word documents almost that size now :) If you need a hand with installing the drive, transferring your data or more advice, give me a shout here or via PM.