Deleting ntuser.dat from W7 32 bit?

klxdrt · 26 Dec 2014

Hi,

Below is a screen shot of my ntuser.dat files. Can I delete BOTH #1 yellow highlighted & #2 cyan highlighted? If not, which ones can I safely delete as I have lots of them.

cheers,

klx

Ztruker · 26 Dec 2014

None of them. Leave them alone.

pbcopter · 26 Dec 2014

They are registry files. As Ztruker says, I wouldn't do anything to them.

Faladu · 26 Dec 2014

ntuser.dat I say is a horrible name for it, but itiswhatitis, don't mess with any of that.

They are not taking up that much space, 512k is not much space these days.

If really trying to nitpick space, I suggest Folder Size - Freeware file size analysis. Check the directory sizes, folder sizes and file sizes on your computer with this freeware tree size analysis tool.

klxdrt · 26 Dec 2014

Thank's for the quick reply.

You're rite, space is not a problem.

Unlike the govt or a Fortune 500 co, I preform a an surprise due diligence inspection every few months on my PC & found them.

I have 68 total, about 28 mb.

cheers,

klx

Berton · 26 Dec 2014

Agreed, leave the files alone.

Of greater concern on small-capacity HDDs is the amount of HDD space the files use, default formatting of NTFS is 4096KB. Only one file can exist in a cluster so 4096KB X 68 = 278528KB or 272MB used space, could be an issue on a lesser HDD than you have. It was a real issue back in the 'olden' days, my first computer had a 120MB HDD but the cluster size was much less, maybe even less than in the chart on Default cluster size for NTFS, FAT, and exFAT.

klxdrt · 27 Dec 2014

Berton,

Thank's for the thorough explanation, as I was somewhat familiar with it not being a techie.

I read your mention of the "old days" days & found it interesting. However what about the older days when you only had 4k ram, no drives at all just a small cassette recorder to store your CPM programs? Or a little "newer" days with a 10mb Rhodime HD?

Cheers & happy new year,

klx

Berton · 27 Dec 2014

I had waited a bit longer than some to get a computer, it was a Hewitt-Rand 386-40MHz AMD CPU, 4MB RAM running MS-DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.1 with WordPerfect 5.1 for Windows. First upgrade was to 8MB RAM followed by a 210MB HDD. I do recall some folks using the dual 5.25" floppies with no HDD and a couple using the Commodore 64 and one with a Tandy TRS-80 [usually unfondly referred to as a "Trash 80"].