Windows 7: Why did I suddenly go from 2GB free space to 30GB free space??

Hi, for months my C: (120 SSD) had only 2GB left of free space. So I finally purchased a 250GB SSD to replace it with. I received the drive last week and the box has been sitting on my desk. This morning I noticed that all of a sudden my C: drive is no longer in the red... I now have 30GB of free space. How can this be? I didnt uninstall any programs! All that occured on my PC is a windows update the other night...

Possible explanations?

There is the system maintenance troubleshooter that runs at 1am.


Issues it looks for:
-Troubleshooting history is taking up disk space
-Broken shortcuts
-System time is set incorrectly
-There are icons on the desktop that haven't been used in 3 months.
-Disk volume errors
-Error reports are taking up disk space

Could be disk cleanup, you could also try running that as well. It now has the new mode windows update cleanup which removed older updates that have been unnecessary as new ones replaced it. That will save you even more space.

Maybe a program updated as well.

With all these combinations it can be possible you received a good chunk of free space. However, since you stated you have not run disk cleanup or have done anything, windows might have went nutz and has been wrong about your disk usage and just now got it right.(I am thinking this is the case.)

Or you have not restarted in awhile, and this is when disk information is updated.

What method or programs are you observing free space?
Have you use any cleaners of any kind?
It would be one heck of a clean job to remove 28 gb with out you know anything about it being done.
Windows Updates do not remove things from the computer.

We posted at the same time Andrew.

What is this system maintenance troubleshooter that runs at 1am.
I have never heard or seen such a thing.
But I'm sure like to learn about it.

You can find it under action center, Troubleshooting-change settings-under computer maintenance.

This thread has more info:

Show Us Your WEI [4]

Thx Andrew... I guess it could have been that... as I have no other explanations. Regardless, I'll still upgrade the SSD on my PC since I already bought it, and I'll keep the 120GB SSD for a future laptop.

Glad to help :)

Great find andrew thanks.

No problem :)

I do wonder how this auto Schedule at 1am cleaned out 28 gigs.