What Can i delete on my C drive after installation?

[Egopaintball57]

Alrite, Well i just installed windows 7 and now have alot of used space on my C Drive, Im going to take a screenshot. What can i delete that wont affect my computer? Im In the middle of Deleteing Windows.Old Cause i dont need it anymore.

I have 2 Program Files, Idk which one i can delete and there is all this crazy folders at the top, Is it ok to delete them? Thanks for the help

 

[Bill2]

1) Dont delete any of the Program files folder. On a 64 bit system, theres an extra folder called program files x86 for 32 bit apps. Remember you can run 32 apps on a 64 bit system.

2) SWSETUP is a folder created by HP drivers and apps to locate and unpack files necessary for installation, its HP's version of a temp folder. On a new system it contains all the preinstalled drivers and apps, so its really a nice package. What I do is to back it up to a non-system partition or external drive so they can be re-used, then delete them from the windows partition. Although drivers need to be updated all the time, it makes sense to keep a copy of the original. But they dont occupy all that much space, so you can also leave them alone.

3 You can delete the .txt files (logs).

4) The numbered folders may be those left after windows updates or MSE updates. Let us know their contents.

 

[Night Hawk]

With any clean install of Windows you can simply use the built in cleanup tool. Delete temporary files and free up disk space using the Disk Cleanup utility in Windows 7

Note the video clip there was originally made up for the 7 Release Candidate but still shows the same way you would use this option in the retail 7.

 

[mckillwashere]

I would like to point out windows.old

That has what you had on your old install located inside of it.
That may be why you have alot of space used up

 

[Night Hawk]

I would like to point out windows.old

That has what you had on your old install located inside of it.
That may be why you have alot of space used up

That's always fun digging through the sub folders for deciding on which files to keep and deleting those sub folders first in order to see the main folder removed afterwards once you have taken ownership and can uncheck the "read only" box in the properties screen. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/19151-windows-old-folder-delete.html

 

[mckillwashere]

I keep my os on 1 partion and use a script I run to redirect everything to the others. That way when I reformat all I have to do is relink everything

 

[Night Hawk]

Once you reformat the Windows primary you will still need to reinstall most programs in order to see new registry entries created. That's one item many seem to forget at time when going to perform a clean install and wonder how to get everything working again.

Rather then creating an image of two drives everything is on one while the image is stored and restored from another. A full system image simplifies things even more now that 7 has this seen in each edition except for the Starter.

 

[mckillwashere]

I like to export registry keys for my apps when I get bored..... or install something I feel critical.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello Egopaintball57, welcome to Seven Forums!



Here is another good cleanup method in the tutorial at the link below; be sure to post back with any further questions you may have and to keep us informed.

Disk Cleanup : Extended

 

[Egopaintball57]

Thanks for all the help !

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Glad we could help.

 

[Night Hawk]

Here's how that looks when creating a shortcut. You still have to manually check off various items like dump files and installation logs.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

All that and more is in the tutorial.

 

[Night Hawk]

Other then removal of the Windows.old if seen at all with a clean install involved and a run of the installation cleanup tool there isn't hardly anything else to remove. Once you have programs on and have been running with the installation for some time then you start seeing the accumilation of temp folders with later useless installation logs and other things that then start to clutter things up a bit.