Monitor where disk space is going ?

I'm sorry that WinDirStat didn't live up to your expectations. There's a good number of tutorials right on this site that can tell you what's safe to clean up/delete on your system, including System Restore, the pagefile, hibernation, and much more.

I still urge you to at least install all Windows updates marked as critical. Your fear is unreasonable, in very few cases would an update actually break things - and if it does, the cause is usually something else that needs fixed anyway.

Please keep in mind that updates address much more than just browser security. Using an ad blocker is by no means an adequate substitute.

mistamontiel,

This problem could be caused by many issuse, first I'll ask how large your C:/ Drive is overall. I't could potentially be a bit smaller than you truely need.

Second, Follow the advice from the linked tutorials provided by the members/admin, if you hav not already, such as Brink's link to help you clean your drive and remove all but necessary parts, it's really straight-forward.

If you do not use HYBERNATE as a way to "turn off your computer while saving the session", you can remove a very large file that is essentially useless to you, I have no link to a tutorial, but I'll find one or explain it step-by-step if you would like to try that!

NOTE :: BE CAREFUL: don't downaload programs that promise to get rid of extra junk and clean your registry, unless they have been reccommended highly by a trusted/reputable source.

(also as a final note, if none of this helps:
1) your user profile may be oversized from lots of extra profle speficic customizations
2.) you could have a drive error, and might consider checking yor hdd for errors.
3) if you have not been updating windows, and/or other essential programs, you might have aquired some maleware.)

Use the tutorials in these forums to work through these possible issues.
Anyone here can talk you through the steps of anything i mentioned as well as link you to tutorials explaining them in very explicit details!

Good Luck,
Mike:)

rubyrubyroo, thanks much for stepping in. Well it's a "325 gig", and there's the Recovery drive so the primary drive is a wee 288 gig capacity

I did kill the Hybernate file, it's a mere gig if I recall correctly

And yes, I only trust software from the sevenforums members