Total memory

[valtonray]

essentially what the above poster is saying is that when you delete a file it doesn't actually get erased immediately it becomes marked as free space and can then be overwritten as needed.

 

[whs]

ok, lets try this again.

when i delete a file, it still takes up a small amount of freespace, not enough to be a problem but it still is there. but if i delete a lot of high MB/GB files, will the "leftovers" from those files take away from the overall freespace on my comp?

No, not at all. You have a wrong view of the concept. Example:
You write a 10MB file on the disk. That takes 10MB off the freespace and the system makes an entry into the MFT (Master File Table) that this is a live file.
Now you delete this file. The system deletes nothing (the file remains as is) but it makes an entry in the MFT saying that this file is dead and that the space is available. The 10MBs will be added to the freespace.
That's why programs like Recuva are able to retrieve files that have been previously deleted - all the data is there unless you have written new files to disk and that space (which is tagged as free now) has been overwritten. If you make a disk defrag, all the files on disk are shoved around to fill all those free spaces (as the MFT says) and then the data of your 10MB file is overwritten. Is that understandable?

PS: I just see that 2 other people said the same thing - but in less words.

 

[steveseven]

thank you tepid and everyone, glad thats over with haha

 

[steveseven]

now, i can delete folders within the .old folder, thats not a prob right?

 

[whs]

I think so. You may have to take ownership. I never had a windows.old. I always do fresh installs. But why don't you save what you need and delete the whole thing. There are a lot of files in there that have no meaning for you.

 

[steveseven]

One other thing you can do is eleiminate the hibernation file on disk (assuming that you do not use hibernation - really no need for that). That saves you 2GB and you exercise your newly aquired cmd skills.
Open cmd amd type (or paste)

does win7 use hibernate? whats the major differences between hibernate and sleep?

 

[steveseven]

I think so. You may have to take ownership. I never had a windows.old. I always do fresh installs. But why don't you save what you need and delete the whole thing. There are a lot of files in there that have no meaning for you.

i assume u mean you think that it wont be a prob. so i can delete folders within the .old folder, but then do all that extra stuff to get rid of the actual .old folder? and take ownership of what?

 

[whs]

Just try to delete a folder. If it works, we need not go any further. If it does not, we'll explore the options such as taking ownership. There is no harm done deleting folders that you don't need. Nothing in windows.old is needed to run your current system. They only generate it for your convenience so that you can recover your own stuff.
I would even try to move the whole thing to an external disk. Then you have time to recover from it what you need.

 

[steveseven]

i can delete folders so i guess its not a prob. do i need to do that whole command process still? i wish i thought about putting everything on a disk before I deleted stuff, that would have saved time if i needed to back to xp or get its settings and stuff

 

[whs]

I am sure there are some files which will you trouble if you want to delete them - mainly system files that came from XP. Using cmd is fun and you will learn something. What's wrong with that. But also try to move the whole thing to the external disk (I assume you have one).
Another suggestion is that you make a seperate partition for your data. Let me know whether that would interest you.

 

[Tepid]

that would have saved time if i needed to back to xp or get its settings and stuff

That doesn't work in the way you are thinking.

The Windows.Old folder is for the following reasons ONLY.......

1. If you happen to have files that saved in strange locations you can search through those folders to find what you are missing.

2. You can not run programs from the Windows.Old folder as they must be reinstalled under the new Windows installation to work properly. (The ONLY exception is with what are referred to as Portable Applications, which I will not go into here, snd don't try to get distracted by this either, one thing at a time.).

3. To retrieve files that could possibly be used under the new install of windows, but this gets into complicated, geeky, advanced areas that you should not concern yourself with at this time.

In other words, find the personal files you need from the Windows.old folder and delete the entire Windows.old and reinstall the applications you need.

I removed info I had put here because after further thought it might be a bit overboard for what you really need. There are things you still need to learn, but I think there are too many things being thrown out all at once which can confuse the initial issue.

 

[steveseven]

im going more for efficiency not fun, sorry haha. if there is a prob with deleting a file/folder then i should use your cmd method?

what would the separate partition do?

 

[whs]

A seperate data partition insulates your data from the system. If the system is in trouble and you have to reinstall it for whatever reason, then your data stays completely untouched. After all, the system can always be easily reinstalled, but if you loose your data (music, pictures, etc.) that is usually unrecoverable. Here is a video tutorial that I made on the matter.
Another suggestion would be imaging. Have a look at this post. It will give you an idea.