Solved Things that fill up C:

[BrainDamage]

Is there somewhere a list of things that fill up the C: drive? I'm thinking things that don't show up in Disk Cleanup, like System Restore, Search Indexer, Windows Installer crap and the like.

I'm constantly running out of C: space. After disabling search indexing, it seems the space stays mostly stable but gets gobbled up big if I install some software

For example, yesterday I had 320MB free. I ran a setup program (exe was on another drive) to overwrite the install of an older version in Program Files (there was no update option). The older program had 70MB in Program Files, the new one has 80MB. After the setup finished I had 160MB free. Looked in %TEMP%, c:\windows\temp, AppData (Local & Roaming), ProgramData. Couldn't find anything.

What the hell could've eaten up that 150MB? I've ruled out Search Indexer, System Restore (has no restore points) and c:\windows\installer. What other "features" do you know about?

 

[Snick]

Hi BrainDamage,

TreeSize Free is a free tool that shows you what’s taking up all of the space on your machine.

I use Microsoft's built in Cleanmgr /VERYLOWDISK occasionally and before every repair install or backup!
From Administrative CMD
Cleanmgr /VERYLOWDISK
Frees up much more disk space than just disk cleanup!
or my batch script
Disk cleanup very-low-disk.zip
Extract from zip and run. It will restart your computer after completed. You can view batch script with notepad!
Snick

 

[sverne]

Try TreeSize which displays what component and how much space is being used on C.
TreeSize Free | JAM Software
Or CC Cleaner>Tools>Disk analyzer.

 

[BrainDamage]

Hi BrainDamage,
From Administrative CMD, have you tried
Cleanmgr /VERYLOWDISK
or my batch script
Disk cleanup very-low-disk.zip
Extract from zip and run. It will restart your computer after completed. You can view batch script with notepad!
Snick

Thanks! I don't wanna restart my computer right now because there are too many programs I'd have to start up again. I'm not really in a rush to free up space. For example WICleanup shows 15GB of deletable msi's and msp's, but I don't want to delete them all now because the space would fill up with something again in a matter of days/weeks

Is this the Disk Cleanup thing that starts on its own occasionally when I have less than a few dozen MB disk space? Do you know what sorts of things it deletes?

 

[torchwood]

Hi

Biggest "hidden" and untouched folder is Hibernation, so if you dont use it turn it Off
next is windows Updates folder, allthough it can be reduced with diskclean-up - System folders option

I tend to run this little program, TFC, daily
Download TFC

look at your history settings Internet settings, via control Panel REDUCE days history kept, i use 0.
Turn Off IE11
set any 3rd party program updaters to manual


You will likely encounter bigger problems - the system requires at least 10% free space to work with.
If you have removed any programs also check if folders are still presen in Program files.


Roy

 

[BrainDamage]

Try TreeSize which displays what component and how much space is being used on C.
TreeSize Free | JAM Software
Or CC Cleaner>Tools>Disk analyzer.

Ok ran that. I already have some program for that called Scanner, it shows file and folder sizes as a pie chart, but the amount for the C: drive doesn't add up to 100% although it counts Recycle Bin and runs as admin. Not too surprised since the FS is very fragmented. This TreeSize thingy shows me under total Allocated 6GB more than the size of my HDD I wonder what's being overcounted.

Thanks for the tool and love the Mercedes icon ;P

Hi

Biggest "hidden" and untouched folder is Hibernation, so if you dont use it turn it Off
next is windows Updates folder, allthough it can be reduced with diskclean-up - System folders option

I tend to run this little program, TFC, daily
Download TFC

look at your history settings Internet settings, via control Panel REDUCE days history kept, i use 0.
Turn Off IE11
set any 3rd party program updaters to manual


You will likely encounter bigger problems - the system requires at least 10% free space to work with.
If you have removed any programs also check if folders are still presen in Program files.


Roy

Thanks Roy, though that TFC thing is a bit too aggressive for me, I don't want to restart my programs all the time I go like 6 months between PC restarts. Do you have a list of locations it cleans up or can you c/p the list of locations in the output window the next time you run it? I've already checked the locations visible in the screenshoot but none of them have things I didn't know about (tho I now know where crash dumps are stored )

Re: hiberfil, pagefile etc. I know about all these files but they always stay the same size. I'm mainly interested in cruft that grows while the system idles or I install programs etc.

 

[BrainDamage]

Windows apparently cleaned up something silently in the past hour and, 3 days after updating 20 programs, I'm back up to 700MB space (tho not all previous freed space has been recovered).

Luckily I had TreeSize still open so I managed to track down the freed space. It all came from C:\System Volume Information

 

[torchwood]

hi

here's the latest one


User: All Users

User: Default
->Temp folder emptied: 0 bytes
->Temporary Internet Files folder emptied: 0 bytes

User: Default User
->Temp folder emptied: 0 bytes
->Temporary Internet Files folder emptied: 0 bytes

User: Public

User: Roy
->Temp folder emptied: 2795507 bytes
->Temporary Internet Files folder emptied: 211781569 bytes
->Flash cache emptied: 0 bytes

%systemdrive% .tmp files removed: 0 bytes
%systemroot% .tmp files removed: 0 bytes
%systemroot%\System32 .tmp files removed: 0 bytes
%systemroot%\System32 (64bit) .tmp files removed: 0 bytes
%systemroot%\System32\drivers .tmp files removed: 0 bytes
Windows Temp folder emptied: 0 bytes
%systemroot%\system32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files folder emptied: 0 bytes
%systemroot%\sysnative\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files folder emptied: 0 bytes

Emptying RecycleBin. Do not interrupt.

RecycleBin emptied: 0 bytes
Process complete!

Total Files Cleaned = 205.00 mb


note it does not allways ask for a reboot, just that progs are closed


Roy

 

[Snick]

Thanks! I don't wanna restart my computer right now because there are too many programs I'd have to start up again. I'm not really in a rush to free up space. For example WICleanup shows 15GB of deletable msi's and msp's, but I don't want to delete them all now because the space would fill up with something again in a matter of days/weeks

Is this the Disk Cleanup thing that starts on its own occasionally when I have less than a few dozen MB disk space? Do you know what sorts of things it deletes?

No, it is included in your OS it is an extended version, there is disk cleanup (which runs auto), disk cleanup low disk, disk cleanup very low disk options, the last to have to be run from CMD or batch script.

 

[Snick]

Thanks! I don't wanna restart my computer right now because there are too many programs I'd have to start up again. I'm not really in a rush to free up space. For example WICleanup shows 15GB of deletable msi's and msp's, but I don't want to delete them all now because the space would fill up with something again in a matter of days/weeks

Is this the Disk Cleanup thing that starts on its own occasionally when I have less than a few dozen MB disk space? Do you know what sorts of things it deletes?

if you run
Cleanmgr /VERYLOWDISK from CMD, i.e. copy and paste, you will not have to restart your computer.

Why do you leave your system running without restart for that long?

Why do you have so many programs running/open at one time?

 

[Bree]

... I had TreeSize still open so I managed to track down the freed space. It all came from C:\System Volume Information

System Volume Information is where all your restore points are stored. Cleaning up restore points will release space.



System Protection Restore Points - Delete


You can limit the amount of space allowed for restore points if you are getting short on free space.


System Protection - Change Disk Space Usage

 

[BrainDamage]

No, it is included in your OS it is an extended version, there is disk cleanup (which runs auto), disk cleanup low disk, disk cleanup very low disk options, the last to have to be run from CMD or batch script.

I get the disk cleanup tray popup when the free space is very low. However occasionally when it approaches zero, some form of automated disk cleanup apprently starts all by itself, it just flashes the usual dialog boxes quickly in a second or two and shows the usual message box with the amount of space freed. If you've ever seen that, I wonder if that's it.

if you run
Cleanmgr /VERYLOWDISK from CMD, i.e. copy and paste, you will not have to restart your computer.

Why do you leave your system running without restart for that long?

Why do you have so many programs running/open at one time?

Because it's convenient & saves time spent on getting programs running again and remembering what I was doing and where I was in each file last time. I'm the kind of person who has 2,000 tabs open in Pale Moon and I'm not very different with other software

System Volume Information is where all your restore points are stored. Cleaning up restore points will release space.



System Protection Restore Points - Delete


You can limit the amount of space allowed for restore points if you are getting short on free space.


System Protection - Change Disk Space Usage

Thanks, tho I actually didn't have any restore points, and checked that several times by trying to run System Restore in the last few days. However I still have 15% of the drive allocated to it so System Restore must be filling that space with something else (VSS?)

 

[BrainDamage]

List of space hogs

Trying to compile a list of all features that not only use up space but keep growing with time. Feel free to add anything I've missed / don't know of

Pagefile
- I'm guessing it can grow if you have it set on Automatically managed. I've fixed it at the same size as RAM and that's probably too much already for my purposes, the file was last modified 2 months ago

%TEMP%
- Fills up with old stuff regularly, and during software installs/updates

%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files
- also not cleaned up automatically, not visible in Windows Explorer, cleaned up by the Cleanup wizard

%userprofile%\AppData\Local (not the Temp folder)
- many programs leave temporary files here too, old deletable setup files in various folders could up to a gigabyte on a never cleaned system. However not all setup files are deletable, some are still needed by their programs

Search indexer
- Eats up the whole disk if not turned off and still useless. I've only figured out one way to turn it off and save space: Control Panel > Indexing Options. First go to Advanced > Rebuild indexing, then wait until indexing restarts (if you didn't do anything else, takes a few min) and quickly press Pause. This "pauses" it for 15 minutes. Then go to Services and stop and disable Windows Search.

C:\Windows\Installer
- Seems to be old setup exes and msis/msps for some programs and probably all Win updates. These might be the things that get called when you go to Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs and select one with Change/Repair ??
- Old files are not deleted, for example I've found msi's for dozens of Adobe Reader updates and I don't have Adobe Reader any more. WICleanup will delete the orphaned setup files. Found 15GB of crap

C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download
- Windows Update bloat

C:\Windows\Temp
- not used much, found only 50MB of old log files

C:\System Volume Information
- contains restore points
- maybe also contains other things like VSS (which I think is handled by System Restore). I'm now wondering if System Restore can also make some hidden restore points, since the amount that went missing after the last install and ended up in SVI was almost exactly 2x the size of installed files in Program Files.

Thumbnails
- can use up gigabytes if you have many pictures, cleaned up in the Cleanup wizard

%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\ThumbCacheToDelete
- not sure what this is, several hundred MB of .tmp files dating back to after the last PC restart. Wasn't able to delete in Windows Explorer

Didn't have any of these, but they show up in torchwood/Roy's utility (thanks! )
- Flash cache
- %systemdrive% (C:\) .tmp files
- %systemroot% (C:\Windows) .tmp files
- %systemroot%\System32 .tmp files
- %systemroot%\System32 (64bit) .tmp files
- %systemroot%\System32\drivers .tmp files

Internet history
- Could be a problem in IE. In Pale Moon adds up to several dozen MB even after years and years of browsing with normal history pruning completely disabled via hidden preference.
- However I use a session manager to backup sessions and that adds to several GB. I've curbed that growth by deleting old sessions
- In PM preferences I've limited cache to 0 KB, previously it was also wasting space

C:\ProgramData
- I've deleted things from here in the past but don't remember the details
- 1 GB used by "Microsoft Antimalware" and "Windows Defender" folders. I use none of this stuff. Haven't tried deleting yet

C:\MsoCache
- MS Office setup crud. Somebody on the internet said you can burn it to a DVD and change its references in registry from C:\MsoCache to X:\MsoCache (where X: is your optical drive) and then delete it. Haven't tried yet.

C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\CrashDumps
- Presumably the dumps cleaned up by the Cleanup wizard. I have some dumps in here.

C:\Windows\winSxS
- False alarm despite some website claims. Looks to be all hardlinks, so deleting this would save no space at all.

 

[Megahertz07]

Too much effort to gain less than a G byte.
Why don't you buy a small SSD (120G - US$25) for windows and programs and use the HDD for data only?

 

[Snick]

Too much effort to gain less than a G byte.
Why don't you buy a small SSD (120G - US$25) for windows and programs and use the HDD for data only?

 

[BrainDamage]

Too much effort to gain less than a G byte.
Why don't you buy a small SSD (120G - US$25) for windows and programs and use the HDD for data only?

What do you mean less than a gigabyte? I've listed over 20GB of useless files. That's already probably enough free space to last me the rest of this OS lifespan, as long as I can make sure it won't get quickly filled up with some process I missed.

If I had enough free space for full System Restore usage and search indexing, it would be easily 100GB or more. I have a 500GB C: partition and for nearly all of this installation's lifetime it's been stuffed, with Windows silently freeing up several hundred MB here or there as I added more stuff on it, or me moving data to another partition to install new programs. Less than 200GB of data remains.

It's well known that Windows expands to eventually consume all free space on C:, I think if I put it on a 1TB partition it would still eat everything in less than a month if I didn't disable at least Restore & indexing

 

[Snick]

BrainDamage,

I don't know of anyone who uses a computer with so many programs/tabs of whatever constantly open & doesn't regularly shut down or restart their computer.

My opinion, that is problematic!

Nor do I know anyone who is experiencing the issues you claim (including me). Maybe your problem is being created by how you USE your system?

Again my opinion.

 

[BrainDamage]

Snick well if I used it less, maybe I wouldn't have some of these problems. But that's not really much of a solution

And anyway I don't really care that much, you might not believe it but everything works fine if there's more than 50MB free space, that thing about min 10% free is a total myth. The only issue I have is maintaining 50MB free. It takes 2 seconds to move a file that size to another disk where I have TBs free every now and then, and that's all I want to avoid doing May be finicky to start a thread over that, but I thought maybe someone has the same problem and we can share tips

It looks like the trial version of the TreeSize software you recommended can save sizes of all the folders so I'm gonna run that, free up some space and if anything eats it after a week or two I'll know what it was and post here

 

[Snick]

BrainDamage

 

[Megahertz07]

I have a small SSD (128G) with Win 7 and Linux. The Windows partition is 83G and it has 28G free.
Using Kari tutorial I have moved C:\users (SSD) to D:\Users (HDD)

As you didn't fill up your hardware specs on your profile, we don't know how big is your C: partition.
Anyway, you're loosing a lot of time just to avoid buying another drive.
If you want to gain some G bytes:
- Disable System Restore.
- Move the virtual memory to another disk
- Disable hibernation (“powercfg.exe -h off” [make sure you are an Administrator])