Free space on C drive keeps decreasing?

[timothyhuang]

My OS is windows 7 32bit. What I have done to prevent decreasing is:
1. disable system restore on all drives.
2. turn off hybernation
3. move pagefile to other drives.
The problem is it is still decreasing, though in a lower rate.
Any suggestions?
Thanks.

 

[HerrKaLeun]

welcome to the forum.

Maybe gie us more detail on how much space you have and how much it takes.

use ccleaner every once a while. defrag every once a while. Actually I only use Defraggler to see how much space is taken. Not sure if that Windows thing tells me what it wants me to see, or everything.

My C-drive uses 54-62 GB. I assume all fluctuation is windows related since I installed all applications a long time ago. As long as it goes down every once a while, I wouldn't worry. Sometimes you don't see the decrease before rebooting. AV software and other software also uses some temporary space. should check those settings to not accumulate too many log files.

Edit: when you deinstall software, make sure it deleted all the files. Some software just has incomplete deinstallation routines that leave data on the disk, like user data etc.

 

[ski]

Do you run Disk Cleanup and delete browsing history files in Internet Options?

 

[timothyhuang]

Thank you two guys. I didn't install many on system drive c. Only some: Eset 4.0, ms office 2003, and xp mode. I do clean system from time to time using winUtilities pro. I can't think of other reasons than windows update.

C drive total: 42.7Gb
now 14.9Gb free.
several days ago, it was 15.5GB free
Months ago, it was around 18GB.

 

[unifex]

Well Timothy,

for comparison, here's my C:\ drive, which contains only Windows and installed programs, no user files, no browser cache and so on. I've got 44.5 GB used space on that drive.

The biggest thing that makes this number change is temporary files. Depending on which apps you use and how you have configured them your temporary folder can grow very fast, since most programs do not clean up after themselves. So, I just checked, my C:\Users\myusername folder has almost 10 GB in it. I guess it's time to clean up.

 

[nekkidtruth]

Just some educational notes...

When you install new software on your computer, regardless of where you install it some programs still install files to the C: drive so the software can function properly. This of course isn't always the case, but for a lot of the larger software it is.

For instance, you can install Photoshop to a different drive, but Adobe installs Common Files as well as some DLL files on the C: drive. This happens with some games as well. Take Sims 3 for instance, you can install it to whichever driver you want, but it will create a folder on your C: drive as well.

Windows Updates will definitely take up space as you update more and more. To be perfectly honest with you, going from 18GB months ago, to 14.9GB now is nowhere near horrible. I wouldn't be hugely concerned until you notice a large decrease in a very short amount of time. In the mean time, as has already been suggested just run routine cleans and keep an eye on what's being installed.

 

[timothyhuang]

Thank you all.
Anyway, it's not a drastic change. I just want to find out the cause(s).

 

[timothyhuang]

Enlightened by the foregoing discussions, I went into the Temporary Internet Files, located in C:\Users\(MyAccount)\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows, and found it occupied 15 plus GB! I then went to Control Panel ->internet options and deleted those temp files and freed 15GB.

A word about the cleaning software I used: I entrust my system to it, but it never did the job it claims.

 

[Zomby88]

Set your temporary internet files to delete on exit, and you could uncheck save favorite website files and they won`t keep building up.

 

[CommonTater]

My OS is windows 7 32bit. What I have done to prevent decreasing is:
1. disable system restore on all drives.
2. turn off hybernation
3. move pagefile to other drives.
The problem is it is still decreasing, though in a lower rate.
Any suggestions?
Thanks.

Have you checked to see if you have a load of junk in your temp files?

Open windows explorer on any folder.
In the address (not search) bar type %temp% and hit enter.
You can probably turf most of what you find there.

 

[ski]

Glad to hear that you found the cause of your problem. Windows has some powerful cleanup tools.
Did you also run Disk Cleanup found in Start/All Programs/Accessories/System Tools? It cleans up some stuff that's not in the Browsing History cleanup section of Internet Options.

 

[karlsnooks]

Timothy,
Use CCleaner - Home which is a free program, excellent, used by the majority of people who regularly answer questions here.

Use CLEANMGR.EXE which is the Win 7 clean up program.

 

[CarlTR6]

Another vote for Ccleaner. You get set it to be as aggressive as you want to include deleting internet cookies. Unless you know what your are doing, I would not use the registry cleaner.

 

[timothyhuang]

Timothy,
Use CCleaner - Home which is a free program, excellent, used by the majority of people who regularly answer questions here.

Use CLEANMGR.EXE which is the Win 7 clean up program.

Ok, I'll try

 

[timothyhuang]

Glad to hear that you found the cause of your problem. Windows has some powerful cleanup tools.
Did you also run Disk Cleanup found in Start/All Programs/Accessories/System Tools? It cleans up some stuff that's not in the Browsing History cleanup section of Internet Options.

I run Disk Cleanup very often, but that doesn't seem to erase Temp Internet files, I don't know why.

 

[CommonTater]

Glad to hear that you found the cause of your problem. Windows has some powerful cleanup tools.
Did you also run Disk Cleanup found in Start/All Programs/Accessories/System Tools? It cleans up some stuff that's not in the Browsing History cleanup section of Internet Options.

I run Disk Cleanup very often, but that doesn't seem to erase Temp Internet files, I don't know why.

If you're using IE you may want to try this...

Click Tools in the upper right corner, then Internet Options then Advanced... about half way down is a setting to erase temporary files when exiting....

 

[ski]

Does the "Temporary Internet Files" item have a check mark in its box in Disk Cleanup?