Windows 7: windows 7 still eating disk space

Hi,
i open this topic because i did not found solution anywhere!

I have windows seven 64bit,
disabled/canceled all restore points
limited shadow copy to at maximum 320MB
limited pagefile.sys to at maximum 2gb (and is now 1GB)
cleaned C: with utility
canceled history

and windows STILL EATING SPACE!
i had the same problem with vista that was eating 300/600MB at each reboot
Windows 7 seems to do it also, but less obviously.
And the worst is that files (included hidden system files) on disk look to be the same number and with the same size!



what the hell is happening?

what are you using to determine your free space? windows, or some third party utility?

To find out what is taking up your space, try WinDirStat - Windows Directory Statistics

I am guessing hyberfil.sys is the culprit.. That is the file that gets created when you hybernate your system. Mine was a bout 6gb till I got rid of it.

I like to use WinDirStat to get a nice graphical representation of what is eating disk space:

WinDirStat - Windows Directory Statistics

I have disabled hybernate option, so i have not hyberfil.sys.
For disk space i have used windows, viewing properties of all folders and then disk properties

windirstat open also hidden files and folder that i dont own?

Yes

If you disable hibernation,. the hiberfill.sys file will be deleted.

if not,. manually delete It.

Hi there
try TREESIZE.EXE
I posted it in this thread - don't worry about the Music Thread / Post - the attachment is what you want

Deleted music but no free space showing

cheers
jimbo

Viruses can eat up disk space.

There is also the issue of file links :/

They have been around a long time but until vista Windows itself didn't use them much, now it does. The \Windows folder is full of them and depending on wher eyou are looking for a total file size or what program you are using to so it yo ucan get some pretty bogus numbers because it counts the size of the original file, then every single file link to the same file.

If I can remember when I get home I can post an example. You can right click the \Windows folder and get a value for the entire folder size. Then, inside the windows folder is another folder of hard links to nearly every system file and that folder alone looks like it is the size of the entire Windows folder even though there is really "nothing" in it (nothing taking up space that isn;t already counted externally anyway).

Is it possible that a daily restore point is making a snapshot of the critical system files as hard links, therefore making it appear that the windows folder is growing when it really isn't?

Even if it were hard links causing the disk space to appear used...looking at My Computer or going to a cmd line and running dir would show the proper amount of space. It's usually apps like TreeSizeFree and WindirStat and explorer which show the wrong size of a particular folder.

It seems in this case, the OP is seeing disk space dropping by 300MB+ at every reboot and that isn't normal. If you do a disk cleanup, do you see a rather large amount of system dump files? Maybe something is writing a new dump file at every reboot.