does windows 7 use temporary spaces on system drive while downloading

kenny1999 · 22 Jul 2014

My system main rive often runs out of space. I don't really know why. Sometimes the free space could be 1GB but sometimes it could drop to 1MB or 0KB. I don't have lots of programs installed but such problems always exist. I do frequent deletion of temp files and cache, but it doesn't work very well.

One time when my system drive had 1MB free only and I attempted to download something to a portable drive which has lots of free space. But it turns out with error messages like out of spaces. While I am downloading to a portable drive which is nothing about the system drive. Yes, the system drive is full, but why it doesn't let me download to the portable drive? does it mean during downloading, it always takes some temporary spaces on system drive no matter where the file is saved?

Another thing that I don't understand is, a lot of time the system drive runs to 0KB free space and I clean all the cache on different browsers and scan disk, something like that. However, it just can't free up a lot of spaces after all this act, maybe only 2-3MB comes out at last, but when I reboot the PC and check the space, the space on system drive could be 200MB or 300MB immediately.

In fact, what is it likely to be the cause

whs · 22 Jul 2014

I would recommend you first get a full picture of the space usage.

For the usage of space by the OS and all the files, run this program.

For the usage of the shadowstorage (that's where the restore points are stored), run this command in an elevated command prompt:

vssadmin list shadowstorage

Then post the results here.

LMiller7 · 22 Jul 2014

A browser will typically download to a temporary location before transfer to the final location. There are t4echnical reasons for this that I do no fully understand. Windows and application disk space usage is very complex and much of it is undocumented. I expect that what you are seeing is completely normal.

Your disk space issues are severe and need to be dealt with. Having even a few hundred MB of free disk space is not enough.

Berton · 22 Jul 2014

I use vssadmin list shadowstorage with a switch to create a text file in the same Folder.

vssadmin list shadowstorage>shadow.txt

The > character is a redirection from the screen [won't be visible] to the .txt file, won't show on the screen but the resultant file can be opened in Notepad and most word processors making easier to Copy and Paste.