Why is the disc lit in red. How to clean your local drive C from "garbage" effectively! CCleaner - Free But Effective

14.01.2018

On a local drive with a red stripe. Disk C is full: what to do and how to clean it

Perhaps every computer user at least once faced the problem of disappearing space from the system disk. Moreover, regardless of which version of the operating system is installed. You can install Vista instead of Win XP, and replace it with Windows 7 - drive C is filled in exactly the same way. What to do? There are many recommendations for solving this problem, but some of them are designed for "green beginners" who do not understand that each installed program or file takes up part of the space. Others are so complex that it takes a long time to figure out why the C drive fills itself and what to do about it. In our article, we will try to combine both approaches by offering a simple and effective tool.

Recovery points

Let's start with the simplest. In the latest versions of operating Windows systems a very interesting software mechanism has been implemented, the work of which is to preserve the last operational states, which allows you to "roll back" at any time. For example, after installing a new driver and rebooting, the system stops loading, displaying an error message. This can be overcome by pressing the F8 button at startup and selecting the appropriate item in the menu. However, this method only works if creation is not prohibited by the user. The downside of this mechanism is the fact that the C drive is constantly filling up. This is because you need free space to save states. Thus, if the C drive is full by itself, then you need to check the settings of this mechanism. To do this, you need to open the menu of the "Start" button and call the "Properties" shortcut "My Computer".

Next, you need to select "Advanced options". The "System Properties" window will open, in which you need to select the tab responsible for protecting the operating system. The "Configure" button is important here, which provides access to the control of the checkpoint mechanism. Then everything is simple: if the C drive is full, then it is necessary to delete the saved states, reduce the allotted volume, or disable their recording altogether. You can erase the extra folder manually: it is located in the root directory of the system drive, by default it is hidden and is called Recovery.

Virtual memory

Modern people actively use the so-called swap file in their work. It is a part of the data from the RAM that is not required by the processor at the current time and can be swapped out to the drive, thereby freeing up the RAM. If the C drive is full, then you need to check the size of pagefile.sys located in the root directory. You can adjust it in the following way: "My Computer - Properties - Performance - Options - Advanced - Change". You can insert the desired size instead of autoconfiguration. The more RAM in the computer, the smaller the swap file can be.

Extra files

When installing software distributions, there are almost always some entries on the partition that you can safely delete. So, disk C is full. What should I do? In modern systems, there is such a thing as a temporary folder. It is denoted by TEMP or TMP. The location depends on the version and can be changed manually. You can view the current state in the properties of the "Computer" shortcut by opening the "Variables" tab in the "Advanced" section. Both entries are in the upper window. Having decided on the path, it remains not to wonder why the C drive was filled by itself, but to open and erase everything that is there. Sometimes the size of "garbage" reaches tens of gigabytes.

Security programs

Nowadays, it is difficult to find a computer without antivirus applications. However, few users know that many of them lead to a situation where the C drive is full by itself. This is not a mistake, but a completely normal operating mode.
For example, the famous "Kaspersky" for updating own bases not only downloads them from the global network, but also saves files to the drive. As a result, the loss of space can reach tens of gigabytes. If you go to the hidden All Users directory, you can find Kaspersky Lab there, which is gradually expanding. In addition, files are also created to store work reports. This mess can be stopped or at least limited. After calling the Kaspersky Anti-Virus settings, open "Advanced" and select "Reports and Quarantine". Here you can adjust the recording time and size limit. Many antivirus programs have the ability to "eat up" disk space, so if the C drive is full on its own, then maybe it's time to think about changing the protection. For continuous use, we recommend avoiding test alpha and beta versions of products, which often save additional data to files.

Malicious

Of course, do not forget about Some of them are designed to fill the hard disk with garbage data. Usually, to restore performance, it is enough to find and remove the malware using the appropriate applications. An excellent solution is a free program from Dr.Web called CureIT, as well as Removal Tool from Kaspersky Lab.

Out of date browser entries

All programs for viewing pages on the Internet use a caching mechanism in order to speed up subsequent access and reduce traffic, thanks to which some data is stored on the drive. The more such records, the, as a rule, the faster the browser works, since it does not need to request data from the servers again. However, if the growth of the cache is not limited and is not periodically cleared, then the folder of such data can grow to an impressive size. So, in latest versions For the popular Firefox program, you should open the settings through the top menu item and go to "Advanced". There it remains to select "Network" and click the "Clear" button. In "Chrome", the button for clearing the history, located in the "Personal data" section, is responsible for cleaning. When deleting cache files, it is important not to erase unnecessary ones: in Google Chrome, the choice is made by checking / unchecking the checkboxes.

Local proxies

Some users, when working with Internet resources, for one reason or another, use caching programs installed on the computer. One of the most famous is Handy Cache. If the tariffication for traffic is per megabyte, then such a solution can significantly save money. If "fine-tuning" is not performed, then very quickly the volume occupied by files reaches several gigabytes. The easiest way is to remove them. To do this, the program should use the "Clear" button located in the "Cache" section.

Filesystem error

Although with the beginning of the NTFS “era,” the number of failures caused by file corruption on drives has decreased significantly, it is nevertheless sometimes necessary to check the drive for errors. Sometimes a corrupted partition table can lead to the fact that although you can continue to work with the disk, the free space will behave as it pleases. The easiest way is to use the built-in Windows solution from Microsoft. To do this, open "My Computer", select the system drive and right-click to call its properties. It remains to click the "Check" button in the "Service" tab.

Before manual cleaning

Of course, the method of "fighting for free disk space" is not limited to the above methods. A great solution to keep in mind is to manually remove unnecessary software junk. There are many free programs that allow you to scan the selected drive and provide graphical results. Notable examples are Free Disc Analizer and Disctective. After starting and completing the assigned tasks, the user will be shown a window in which you can see which folders exist and how much space each of them takes. It also provides an analogue of the explorer, with which you can open the desired directory and delete unnecessary from there. As you can see from the above, if the C drive is full, then there is no reason to panic - all problems can be overcome on your own.

A fairly common problem is the lack of free space on the C drive with the installed operating system. Despite the fact that many users try not to store anything superfluous on this disk, the problem of lack of free space on the system disk over time appears, if not for all, then for many.

Freeing up space on the C drive - What files can I delete?

So, we will begin our cleaning of the system disk with such system files as pagefile.sys.

The easiest way to free up space on the C drive is to delete the pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys files from it.

The first file is 1 to 4 gigabytes in size, and pagefile.sys can be 1 to 3 gigabytes in size. By removing these files from the C drive, you can free up to 7 gigabytes on it!

First, let's make sure that they are present on our computer. To do this, either through Total commander, or through a standard explorer we go to the root of the C drive, having previously enabled the display of hidden and system files.

These files can be deleted from the C drive

Just with the DELETE key or via context menu they cannot be deleted. But more on that later. Let's figure out what these files are and will their deletion affect the computer's operation?

The first file, hiberfil.sys, is the hibernation file. We considered it in detail in a separate article. There you will also find a way to remove it.

Pagefile sys what is this file?

As for the file pagefile.sys, this is the so-called "paging file". Or in other words. We will not delete it, but move it to another local disk with enough free space.

To remove the pagefile.sys file from the C drive, go to the system properties. To do this, make one right-click on the "Computer" icon in the "Start" menu and select "Properties" in the menu that opens.

We go into the properties of the system

In the window that opens, click "Additional parameters", then the "Advanced" tab, then the first button from the top "Parameters", then again the "Advanced" tab and the last button "Change" from the bottom.

The above sequence of transitions

In the "Virtual memory" window that opens, uncheck the "Automatically select paging file size" checkbox.

Remove pagefile sys from disk

After that, you will see a warning message:

Warning when deleting paging file from C drive

Do not be afraid of him, click "Yes".

Thus deleted the file pagefile.sys from drive C. In other words, we have completely disabled the paging file. And this is wrong. Now you need to reassign it, but this time to another local disk.

For this in the last open window select disk D, or another, on which more than 5 gigabytes are free. Put the switch to the "Specify size" position and write 4000 in the "Initial size" and "Maximum size" fields. After that, press the "Set" button.

After all the actions done, click "OK" at the bottom of the window. You may be prompted to restart your computer. We agree. If there was no offer to reboot, then we do it manually and after that you can make sure that there are no more data files on the C drive and there is significantly more space on it.

You can also empty the system volume information folder. She is responsible for the system restore points, but if you do not use it, then you can safely clean it. How to do this is written in

Hello Dear friends! Now I will talk about the problem that everyone has probably encountered. It is when drive C is full, and I will tell you what to do in such cases, and what can be removed without affecting the operation of Windows. I've been asked more than once what can be removed from drive C, otherwise it is full to the chapel, and the system shows a window with warnings.

Let's go in order. Why exactly drive C? Because, it is on this disk that the Windows operating system is installed in 99% of cases, and it does not matter whether it is Windows 7 or Windows XP. During the Windows installation process, we break HDD into sections, on how to do this, I wrote in the article "" Be sure to partition the hard disk, do not make one partition for the system and for storing files.

We create a section and set its size. Waters here is the culmination, depending on how much memory you give for the local disk C, after which time it will completely fill up. Previously, I always gave about 30 GB for the C drive, but already almost all computers come with 500 GB - 1 TB hard drives. And to give the system in such cases 30 GB for the C drive, it seems to me stupid. I now give it to the system disk, 100 - 150 GB.

But as practice shows, these 150 GB are very quickly clogged and the C drive becomes red, which means that it is completely full, and then the questions begin, what can be done, what can be removed from the local C drive? Although I always say, they say, do not save any video, photos and other heavy files to the system partition. Yes, and it is advisable to install games on other sections, now there are such games that I occupy several tens of GB.

What is the threat of a full C drive?

Nothing terrible should happen. The computer will run slower, Windows will warn you that there is no memory on the system disk. In short, there will be many unpleasant moments in the work of the computer. Do we need it? We will decide :).

What can be removed from the local C drive?

This is probably the most important question in this situation. Many people want to delete information, but are afraid to delete something they need. After all, an operating system is installed on this disk, and many are afraid to harm it.

You know, I've seen a lot of computers in which the disk on which Windows is installed is crammed to capacity. Yes, there is a lot, this is on almost all computers with which I met. And you look that it would be unnecessary to delete, and it seems that everything is needed :), is it familiar?

1. First of all, it is worth remembering that all the information that is stored on the desktop, in the folder “Documents”, “Pictures” and “Music”, is stored on the local drive C. Be sure to check these folders first. If there are heavy files there, such as movies, music, photos, etc. Then transfer them to the local drive D, well, or E. In most cases, these folders contain files that fill the C section. And I have seen a bunch of movies on my desktop more than once, is it so difficult to copy them to another section?

Go to "My computer" and click at the top "Remove or change a program"... A window with a list will open installed programs and games. Click on "Size" to sort the list by the size that the installed programs and games occupy. Delete everything you don't need, I'm sure there will be one. If there are very heavy games, then uninstall them and reinstall, only choosing a different section for installation.

3. We remove garbage from the system. If Windows has not been reinstalled for a long time, then it probably already collected several GB of garbage and temporary files. In order to remove them, you can use a good program CCleaner... I always clean my computer with this program from time to time. You can download it on the Internet, just type in Google “Download CCleaner”. Installs the program and run system cleaning. I will not dwell on this in detail now, I will write about this program later.

4. Empty the trash as an option to free up a couple of MB :).

These are the main (in my opinion) methods, by doing which, you can free up a lot of memory on the local drive C. You can also turn off, or transfer to another disk, the system restore, or, but it seems to me that these are not very effective options and you need to use them as a last resort.

Summing up all that has been written above, I want to say that it is possible to prevent the local disk C from filling up completely. And this is very simple to do.

Copying or downloading a movie from the Internet? Do not be too lazy to choose to save disk D, E, or whatever you have. No need to save it to your desktop. Install the game, change the installation location from the C drive to another partition, this is a matter of a few seconds, and in the end it will help protect the system drive from reddening and ensure stable computer operation.

Also, when saving files to partition C, it is worth remembering that in case of problems with the operating system, you can lose all files. Because when installing Windows, the C partition is usually formatted. I think it will be still interesting for you to read ““, it should come in handy.

And finally, do it again, it will hardly add memory, but it will put things in order, and the computer will work faster. Good luck!

In the life of every user, sooner or later a moment comes when running out of free space on drive C and a similar message pops up. At the same time, the computer starts to slow down terribly, many programs do not work correctly, or do not work at all. It is advisable not to allow such a situation, but if it has already befallen you, in this article I will tell you how to deal with it - free up space on the system drive without damaging the system.

1. Windows temporary files

The first thing to do in such cases is to delete the temporary Windows files. To do this, you need to delete all the contents of the folders:

\ Temp
\ WINDOWS \ TEMP

for Windows XP:
\ Documents and Settings \\ Local Settings \ Temp
\ Documents and Settings \\ Local Settings \ Temporary Internet Files
\ Documents and Settings \\ Local Settings \ History

for Windows 7, Vista:
\ Users \\ AppData \ Local \ Temp
\ Users \\ AppData \ Local \ Microsoft \ Windows \ Temporary Internet Files
\ Users \\ AppData \ Local \ Microsoft \ Windows \ History

In all "animal assemblies" Windows, the location of the temporary folder may differ. To find the temporary folder, follow these steps:

Start -> Run (Start> Run)(for Windows XP)
Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Run(for Windows 7, Vista)
In the Run window, in the Open box, enter the text: % TEMP%
Click on the button OK«.

It is best to delete files using a file manager such as Total Commander because: a) the folder Local Settings usually hidden and the user may simply not find it; b) in the folder Temp there are several files that cannot be deleted because they are currently in use by the system. For Windows Explorer, this becomes an unsolvable task and it cannot completely empty the folder:

For Total Commander both of these questions are not a problem.

2. Windows update files

After updates operating system in folder \ WINDOWS \ there are still many folders, the names of which begin with "$ ..." They can be deleted too:

3. Browser cache

Internet browsers Opera, Mozilla Firefox, Google chrome, Internet Explorer (especially version 6) sometimes leave behind a huge amount of garbage on the system disk, which is also useful to clean at times. This is done like this:

for Mozilla Firefox: Tools -> Erase Recent History... Select item "Everything", press "OK":

for Opera: Settings -> Delete personal data... You can expand the list " Detailed setting", Press" Delete«:

for Chrome: Chrome menu (on toolbar) -> Tools -> Delete browsing data... Select the item " for all the time", Press the button "Clear the history":

for Internet Explorer:Service -> Delete browsing history or Service -> Internet options -> General -> Browsing history -> Delete button ...

Thus, you can clean the C drive from several gigabytes of garbage, which consists mainly of many thousands of small (up to 10 kb) files, which can significantly slow down the operation of browsers and the computer as a whole.

4. Downloads browsers, torrent clients, DC, MediaGet, DownloadMaster, etc.

All these programs by default load files to the "C" drive, which very quickly leads to its clogging. To prevent this, it is necessary to configure the paths for saving files from the Internet “not on the C drive” in each such program.

for Mozilla Firefox: Tools -> Options -> General -> Path to save files:

for Opera: Settings -> Advanced -> Downloads - > Save downloaded files to:

for Chrome: Chrome Menu (on Toolbar) -> Settings -> Advanced Settings:

for uTorrent: Settings -> Program Settings -> Folders

For other programs that download something from the Internet or a local network, the principle of setting is the same.

5. Databases of mail programs (TheBat, Mozilla Tunderbird, Microsoft Office Outlook, etc.)

With intensive exchange of information using mailers the size of their bases can grow to incredible sizes over time. Desirable this moment take into account even at the stage of installing and configuring these programs, but if you have not done this, it does not matter, you can still fix it.

for TheBat: Mailbox -> Mailbox Properties -> Files and Directories:

for Microsoft Office Outlook: Service -> Email Accounts -> View or Change Existing Accounts-> Create Outlook Data File:

You can check if everything is correct and at the same time delete an unnecessary file from the "C" drive here: Tools -> Options -> Mail Settings-> Data files:

For other mail programs, everything is configured according to the same principles.

7. Temporary program files

Programs that work with large amounts of data, such as disc burning programs (eg Nero Burning ROM), video (eg Pinnacle Studio), audio editors, image processing programs (eg. Adobe photoshop) in the course of their work, they create temporary files of a large size (the so-called "cache") and, if there is not enough free space for their creation, they refuse to work normally, various failures occur. To prevent this, it is necessary to transfer their temporary files to another disk in a timely manner:

Nero Burning ROM: File -> Presets -> Cache:

Pinnacle Studio: Settings -> Project Options:

Adobe Photoshop: Editing-> Settings -> Performance:

8. Games

From the very beginning of using a computer, you should take it as a rule: "If possible, do not put games on the" C "drive! Moreover, modern games take up several DVDs, and after installation they can take up several tens of gigabytes. After installing several such games, you will run out of free space on any disk, no matter how large it is:

9. My Documents and Desktop

This problem has been going on since the days of the dinosaurs of the very first versions of Windows. 8 generations of the operating system have already changed, and user folders are still located on the system disk. Moreover, it got worse: starting with Windows Vista additional folders were added to them, such as "Pictures", "Videos", "Music", "Downloads", "Games", "Contacts", "Searches", "Links" ...

Any standard procedure transfer of all custom folders to another local disk is also not provided. There are only some possibilities, for example, in Windows XP you can transfer the My Documents folder:

Quite experienced and novice PC users have a bad habit of saving the necessary and most requested files to the desktop. A dozen or two gigabytes of information on your desktop is, unfortunately, not uncommon! What can you advise? Only one thing is to completely abandon the use of these "wonderful opportunities" and all important information keep NOT on drive C... Moreover, the probability of losing information stored on the "C" drive is much higher than on any other logical drive.

10.Programs

Look through the list of installed programs and remove those that you will no longer use, especially the large ones:

11. Sleep mode

If it doesn't help much, disabling the use of hibernation will save you from 1 to 5 additional gigabytes.

for Windows XP: Start-> Control Panel -> Appearance and Themes -> Display -> Screensaver -> Power -> Sleep... Uncheck the box Allow the use of hibernation»

for Windows 7, Vista: Start -> Control Panel -> Power supply -> Setting up a power plan -> Putting your computer to sleep -> « Never". You can also turn off the sleep function. Select "Change advanced power settings" and in the window find sleep mode and disable it. After disabling "Hibernation", you can delete the hidden file hiberfil.sys in the root directory of the system disk. With the help of this, it is a little easier to do: just enter the command “ powercfg -hibernate -off«.

12. Other

Large files can appear in any other place on the system disk, where you would not expect to see it:

log files of some programs can grow up to many tens of gigabytes;
some of the users can safely hide and forget the "collection of videos". Where is the best place to do it? Of course, somewhere in the wilds system folders on disk "C";
some program or plug-in for photoshop stores its database (10-100 GB in size) in a user folder;

In such cases, it is necessary to check the size of all folders (including hidden and system ones) and find the "culprit" by excluding them. With help Total Commander is again easier to do this: just press the Ctrl + Alt + Enter key combination in an open folder and the size of all attached files and folders will appear at a glance:

Another case: the folder for temporary files of Avira antivirus has grown to an incredible 16 GB:

13. Cart

Emptying the Recycle Bin is a fairly obvious way to clean up already deleted files from disks, but sometimes quite a few a large number of files, which also negatively affects the performance of the computer.

13. Cleaning programs

There are a huge number of programs that promise by pressing one, maximum two buttons to solve all the user's problems with computer performance and raise it to unprecedented heights. As practice and common sense show, these programs can be solved only by some (or rather only 1, 2 and 3, and something else on the little things) from the above problems, which in this particular case may well turn out to be not the most important problem. Although automating this process saves time: it is much faster to automatically delete temporary files than to clean them up manually. Disk Cleanup Standard ( Start -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Disk Cleanup) is slightly worse than alternative ones (eg Ccleaner).

14. What else is written on the Internet

There are also a lot of fables, myths, unverified facts and outright disinformation in “our Internet”. These, from my point of view, include:

deleting, resizing, moving the paging file;
deletion backups system files, drivers;
removal or modification of operating system components;
removal of duplicate files of the operating system;
formatting drive C.

It is not advisable to touch the components of the operating system without a clear understanding of what exactly you are doing and why.

15. Summary

Long gone are the days when Windows, a bunch of programs and a lot of data were placed in a 1 GB hard disk, and at the same time they also managed to work and play games. The amount of memory on hard drives of the average user has already crossed the mark of several Terabytes, but the problems remain the same. Well, artificial intelligence will not replace experience and common sense anytime soon. Keep track of the free space - for the comfortable operation of the operating system, it should be at least not less than 1/3 of the disk capacity, or not less (and preferably more) several gigabytes... The final chord of this work, to achieve an even better result, must be carried out.

Reasons for lack of free space on the main system drive computers can be different, some can be easily solved, others will have to be tricky, and some require professional intervention. The main thing is not to despair, since in almost 90% of cases you can solve the problem of lack of disk space yourself.

So, let's start in order. The first thing you need to do to free the C drive is to deal with the installed programs and games that you rarely or do not use at all, and you may have plenty of them. The free CCleaner program will help us for this. The program is easy to use, easy to install, and requires no configuration to work effectively.

In the first figure, we see the main window of the program, in which, by clicking on the "Analysis" button, we can determine what is superfluous on the computer. After the end of the analysis, click the "Clean" button and the program will instantly remove the "garbage" from the computer, while showing how much space is freed and where.
Now you can uninstall unnecessary programs. To do this, go to the "Service" item, select an unnecessary program, click on "Uninstall" and agree to complete removal (Figure 2).

But that is not all. The program could leave behind entries in the registry of the operating system and so that Windows does not stumble through them while working, they must also be deleted! This is done as follows, go to the "Registry" item, click on "Search for problems", after "Fix" (Figure 3). The program asks if you need to save a backup copy of the changes made, just in case, we agree.

The following may turn out - this simple and free program knows how to safely and well clean your computer from the accumulated "garbage". There have been cases that some users freed up to 40 gigabytes of disk space, this may be the case if the computer has not been cleaned for a long time.

Everything seems to be good, but CCleaner program automatically cleans and disinfects the computer only from programs and their traces in the system, but user data, for example: video, music, documents, will have to be deleted manually. At the same time, it is not always possible to find all the extra space eaters on the disk, especially if you use video and photo processing programs. The fact is that such programs like to leave temporary data on the hard disk.
Looking for such files, you can waste a lot of time. Some users, in order not to suffer with freeing up disk space, simply reinstall Windows.

To solve the problem with finding unnecessary ones, we will help interesting program"WinDirStat". Like the first one, it is free and easy to use. But it requires more attention, since it simply shows all the files on the disk, and you yourself already decide what to delete.

Let's take a closer look at the example of Figure 4. In the disk selection window, select the system disk "C", the application will analyze the state of memory on the selected disk for some time and give a result with which we will continue to work.

Next, you need to pay attention to the right side of the window. There the files are sorted by color. It is recommended not to delete anything except video and audio files, believe me, there will be a lot of free space.
Next, we check if there is anything superfluous in the "Users" folder; videos from the editor can also be copied there or downloaded from the Internet. Do not forget about the download folder, it can often be pumped into it from the Internet, and then forgotten. For example, a film weighing twenty gigabytes.

Liyano, I made a strict rule for myself - to always keep the C drive clean and constantly clean it of any garbage and unnecessary files. What do I do:

On the C drive there is only the system and programs (only the programs themselves, I put all the data and files for these programs on the D, E, F drives).
Nothing superfluous in the folder My Documents. Only temporary files, which at the first opportunity I drop to another disk in the appropriate folder.
No custom folders on C drive, no other drives.
Regular use of the Ccleaner program (free version).
Defragmenting disks (with free space consolidation) using third-party programs(I am using PerfectDisk).

I have long forgotten about problems with disk C overflow ...

If the C drive is full, but there is space on the D drive, then transfer important documents, photos, videos to the D drive. It even needs to be done so that when re Windows installation do not lose all the files you need.

If there is no space on the D drive either, buy an external hard drive and transfer to it what you rarely watch (movies, some other video, documents, in short, decide for yourself what exactly). External hard drives are not very expensive, and the storage capacity is up to 3 terabytes.

In addition, you can remove all unnecessary programs and files from your computer using uninstaller programs. You can also clean the disk from junk files using the CCleaner program.

The easiest way is to delete materials you don't need. If this method does not work, you can do the following:

1) Perform disk cleanup standard utility Windows. For Windows 7:

Computer -> C: -> Properties -> Tab General -> Disk Cleanup;

2) If Disk Cleanup has not freed up enough space, you can use the Disk Compression utility. This method is fraught with a decrease in the speed of working with the disk. For Windows 7:

Computer -> C: -> Properties -> Tab General -> Compress this disk to save space

You can also buy a second hard drive and transfer some of the materials to it.

If the C drive is full, and you need free space to install the program, for example, then you can simply delete some of the unnecessary, or move it to the D drive - to the computer's hard drive, the main thing is that these are not program files.

By the way, I also try not to save anything extra on it. I get very upset when I see some documents of my brother / husband, films, photos on my desktop. I think that drive C is simply not intended for this, only program files, drivers, etc. should be beaten there.

I advise you to do the cleaning and delete a little or copy to neighboring discs information ... Otherwise, just write some programs (games for example) to the disc and run them from it.

If the C drive is full, then you need to take several appropriate measures:

I bought a separate disk with Windows and programs. I think this is the most correct solution to the issue. And so look at what you have there and erase unnecessary.
You just need to clean the disk, do not delete necessary information... If, of course, there are important documents on your disk and you cannot delete them, then buy another hard disk. After all, if you have little disk space, your computer will be stupid, think for a long time.
Half measures (space will still not be enough for a long time):
1. Garbage cleaning... At the same time, it is not worth killing checkpoints, because, in such a state of the disk, something can be gagged.
2. Defragmentation... It also frees up some space.
There can be only one serious measure - remove unnecessary programs and files... Think about which programs you rarely use or never used at all, which films and left-hand photos can be deleted (original pictures are quite heavy, and if you upload them to your computer thoughtlessly, then there is a lot of unnecessary things), which games you will no longer play .. ...
And if the operating system has not been reinstalled for a very long time, then the number of all these downloads and reboots of program updates also weighs up to a fig.
delete. superfluous. or transfer. to another drive. for example folder documents - (in my observation, it often takes up a lot of space. how to do it right. - this method for 7

Installed on your computer. Sooner or later the time will come when the free space on the hard drive will approach a critical minimum. And if you are reading this article, it is quite logical to assume that you are faced with some kind of disaster, which can be succinctly characterized by one short question: "Disk C is full: what to do?" Probably, in addition to everything else, you began to be assailed by various system messages that have been popping up for some time on the screen of your monitor at a predictable frequency. Finally, the computer is seriously slowing down, and only memories remain of the former performance. Well, it's time to act! Decisiveness coupled with attention, and effective methods described in the article will help you with the inherent experienced users ease to cope with piled digital problems.

When the "C" drive is completely full, you need to clean it of "digital garbage"

The fact is that in the course of its work, it constantly saves some in specially designated areas of disk space, where quite substantial amounts of data can accumulate. As you can imagine, such folders need to be cleaned periodically.

Note: hereinafter, all descriptions and scenarios of actions are designed for use in the operating room. Windows environment 7. However, given the versatility of the methods presented, literally all the material in this article is applicable to other Microsoft operating systems.

We start to implement our plans

However, the raised issue "Completed requires further consideration."

Where Gigabytes Go: System Restore Checkpoints

No one denies that realized in Windows function"Rolling back the system to a stable state" is a really useful and often requested operational tool. However, everything should be in moderation. However, the default settings allow for a non-stop process of saving system copies. After the next OS updates, critical changes in the registry, as well as according to the established schedule, a special Windows service with meticulous precision sends a control "snapshot" of the operating environment to backup storage... If we take into account the fact that most of such copies will never be used, we can conclude that disk space, as a result of excessive reinsurance, is simply wasted irrationally, which leads to the fact that the user begins to think about resolving the question: "Disk C is full : what to do?".

Log in to the control panel.
Activate the "System" section.
Follow the link located in the left part of the "Protection ..." service window.
Highlight the system drive and click on the "Configure" button.
After you click on the "Delete" button, all recovery checkpoints will be erased from the hard disk.

Attention: it is not recommended to carry out this action those who often use the rollback functionality. But nothing prevents you from reducing the reserved volumes to 3-6% of the total capacitive indicators. system partition... In this case, copies of the control points that were saved last will remain.

Virtual memory deposits: is the paging file size justified?

So now you know what needs to be done first when the graphical occupied space gauge in Explorer shows that the C drive is full. However, in order to achieve the maximum possible release of system space, you should resort to one more method - move the paging file directory to another location, or reduce the size of the reserved area of the hard drive.

Open the Control Panel menu.
Go to the "System" section.
In the left part of the working window, activate the "Additional ..." item.
In the "Performance" block, click on the "Options" button.
Click the Advanced tab.
Click on the "Change" button.
Select the system drive and uncheck the "Automatically select ..." checkbox.
Activate the option "Specify size".
Based on the actual amount of physical memory, set the value equal to the capacitive parameters of the RAM.
Confirm the change with the "Set" button and restart the computer.

When transferring to another section hard disk first you need to activate the "No paging file" option. Then you need to select a new directory and repeat the above process. Well, it's time to move on to the next step in the “C drive full.” What to do next?

Cleaning up the system log and more: software "helpers"

When installing various software, as well as in the process of using it, the Windows OS constantly saves the parameters and settings of the changes made, and therefore the volume of registry data is growing. However, not all entries in system log can be considered necessary. So, if the process of uninstalling a program is performed, some (and often the value is expressed in significant megabytes) system information about the uninstalled object continues to take up much-needed space for the user, so to speak, in vain. Unfortunately, if it is required to correct such an unfavorable situation as "disk C is full", Windows 7 (like any other Microsoft OS version) is powerless, since it does not have a standard software tool Therefore, it is necessary to enlist the support of a specialized program.

CCleaner - Free But Effective

Download and install this application on your PC.
Open the section "Registry" that interests us.
Click the Troubleshoot button.
After a short scan, activate the "Fix" button.

You can be congratulated - the practical answer to the question of whether disk C is full: what to do, received. However, not entirely in full. Therefore, dear readers, we follow.

Hidden Threats: What Is Filling Disk Space

The process of detecting new malicious code itself is an incredibly time-consuming task for an experienced IT specialist. The ordinary user, however, has only one thing left - to guess what kind of virus is filling the C drive? Agree, a somewhat difficult situation? Nevertheless, the problem can be solved using one or more special anti-virus utilities that can detect and destroy this kind of "digital infection".

Well, open your browser and download these applications: AVZ, Dr.Web CureIt !, HitmanPro, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware(MBAM) and Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool 2015. All of them are good in their own way, and each of them has its drawbacks, which is understandable. After all, as you know, there is nothing perfect in the world. Therefore, to achieve the maximum effect of a thorough cleaning and in order to get an effective result, use two or three utilities in sequence. By the way, all of the above antivirus tools are intelligently equipped clear interface, and even if you are new to the computer field, you will be able to cope with debugging and running scanning functionality. Remember that idle guesses like "Why is drive C full?" - a waste of time. Try, try, and you will succeed!

Finally

So, now you know where to look for the missing gigabytes of disk space. However, some of the cleaning methods described should not be overused. Especially when it comes to the swap file or the heavily used registry repair service. Only a reasonable approach and justified actions when performing the optimization process can guarantee you stability in the operation of your OS. Now you have the necessary knowledge and clearly understand how to respond to a difficult situation if the C drive is full. How to clean it of the accumulated digital garbage and how to neutralize the virus threat should already be clear to you. However, do not stop there. Improve your knowledge and expand your computer horizons. All the best to you, use your hard drive efficiently!

Freeing up space on the C drive - What files can I delete?

So, we will begin our cleaning of the system disk with such system files as pagefile.sys.

The easiest way to free up space on the C drive is to delete the pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys files from it.

The first file is 1 to 4 gigabytes in size, and pagefile.sys can be 1 to 3 gigabytes in size. By removing these files from the C drive, you can free up to 7 gigabytes on it!

First, let's make sure that these files are present on our computer. To do this, either through Total Commander or through a standard explorer, go to the root of the C drive, having previously enabled the display of hidden and system files.

These files can be deleted from the C drive

They cannot be deleted simply by pressing the DELETE key or through the context menu of the mouse. But more on that later. Let's figure out what these files are and will their deletion affect the computer's operation?

The first file, hiberfil.sys, is the hibernation file. We considered it in detail in a separate article. There you will also find a way to remove it.

Pagefile sys what is this file?

As for the file pagefile.sys, this is the so-called "paging file". Or in other words. We will not delete it, but move it to another local disk with enough free space.

We go into the properties of the system

The above sequence of transitions

In the "Virtual memory" window that opens, uncheck the "Automatically select paging file size" checkbox.

Remove pagefile sys from disk

After that, you will see a warning message:

Warning when deleting paging file from C drive

Do not be afraid of him, click "Yes".

Thus deleted the file pagefile.sys from drive C. In other words, we have completely disabled the paging file. And this is wrong. Now you need to reassign it, but this time to another local disk.

To do this, in the last open window, select disk D, or another, on which more than 5 gigabytes are free. Put the switch to the "Specify size" position and write 4000 in the "Initial size" and "Maximum size" fields. After that, press the "Set" button.

You can also empty the system volume information folder. She is responsible for the system restore points, but if you do not use it, then you can safely clean it. How to do this is written in

Maybe early, maybe late, but almost every computer or laptop user is faced with such a problem as a full hard disk. Most often, this is the C drive, since this is where Windows is usually installed. It's okay because of full disk it won't work with the computer, but nevertheless it will become slower to work, messages about a full disk will constantly come out - in general, not very pleasant.

How do you know if the disk is full? Very simply, in "My Computer" the memory strip under the disk name will be red.

However, this does not mean that it is completely full. But the message "Not enough space on the C drive", when trying to copy data to it, says that there is no space at all. Faced with such a problem, any user asks the question: "What would it be to delete unnecessary and return at least a little memory?" 😮 We will now answer this question.

1. The first step is to check the programs and games located on the C drive. To do this, go to "My Computer" and click "Uninstall or change the program". Here we see our programs and games, as well as their size. Most often, it is games that steal the memory of our disk. Therefore, if you know that you will not play any game, delete it. Because this way you will free up a significant amount of disk space, especially if it weighs 1000 MB or more. It's the same with programs.

2. Next, it is very important to check the user's folder. You can find this folder by opening "Start" (in the right upper corner under the user's picture). Here, first of all, we will check folders such as "My Documents", "My Videos", "My Music", "Pictures", try to transfer everything that takes up a lot of memory, especially video, to drive D or E (if any)

3. Select the "Downloads" folder as a separate item or, in another way, "Downloads". Yes, it is in it that many of the files you downloaded from the Internet are most often stored. Many users never clean it at all, and over time, a decent amount of unnecessary garbage accumulates there, which also takes up a decent amount of memory on the C drive. Most often, you can completely clear this folder, and if you need something, transfer it to the D drive.

4. Now we remove garbage from the system. Surely you have not reinstalled the system for a long time, and during this time several gigabytes of temporary files and other various garbage have accumulated. For cleaning, I advise you to use the CCleaner program, it will not be difficult to find and download it in Google. Cleaning can be done with many other special programs, for example, TuneUp Utilites.

5. And now what not all users know about. The desktop entirely belongs to the C drive, and, accordingly, everything that is on the desktop takes up the memory of the C drive. Therefore, try to transfer photos, videos, music, and the like from the Desktop to any other disk, for example, a drive D. It may be inconvenient, but you will save a lot of memory. And one more thing: empty the trash can, because it also belongs to the C drive. 🙂

So, I think that if you carefully read all the points and delete or move at least some of the suggested ones, your disk will already be much cleaner, everything depends on you.

Now for some important tips!
1. When installing the system, give the C drive at least 50 GB. Personally, this volume is enough for me in full, provided it is used correctly.
2. Be sure to make at least one additional D drive. And download the files you need to it. Remember, in case of problems with the operating system, the data saved on the C drive will be erased. Therefore, everything that is dear to you should be stored on a separate disk.
3. When you download a movie from the Internet or install a game, choose any disk to save, but not C. This is a matter of a few seconds, but it saves memory a lot. Plus, you can move the "Downloads" folder for the browser to another drive, it's a little more complicated, but it will be useful.
I think that's all. Good luck to you! 😉

Recovery points

Let's start with the simplest. In the latest versions of Windows operating systems, a very interesting software mechanism is implemented, the work of which is to preserve the last working states, which allows you to "roll back" at any time. For example, after installing a new driver and rebooting, the system stops loading, displaying an error message. This can be overcome by pressing the F8 button at startup and selecting the appropriate item in the menu. However, this method only works if creation is not prohibited by the user. The downside of this mechanism is the fact that the C drive is constantly filling up. This is because you need free space to save states. Thus, if the C drive is full by itself, then you need to check the settings of this mechanism. To do this, you need to open the menu of the "Start" button and call the "Properties" shortcut "My Computer".

Virtual memory

Modern people actively use the so-called swap file in their work. It represents a piece of data from random access memory, which are not required by the processor at the current time and can be unloaded to the drive, thereby freeing up the RAM. If the C drive is full, then you need to check the size of pagefile.sys located in the root directory. You can adjust it in the following way: "My Computer - Properties - Performance - Options - Advanced - Change". You can insert the desired size instead of autoconfiguration. The more RAM in the computer, the smaller the swap file can be.

Extra files

Security programs

Nowadays, it is difficult to find a computer without antivirus applications. However, few users know that many of them lead to a situation where the C drive is full by itself. This is not a mistake, but a completely normal operating mode.
For example, the famous "Kaspersky" for updating its own databases not only downloads them from the global network, but also saves files on the drive. As a result, the loss of space can reach tens of gigabytes. If you go to the hidden All Users directory, you can find Kaspersky Lab there, which is gradually expanding. In addition, files are also created to store work reports. This mess can be stopped or at least limited. After calling the Kaspersky Anti-Virus settings, open "Advanced" and select "Reports and Quarantine". Here you can adjust the recording time and size limit. Many antivirus programs have the ability to "eat up" disk space, so if the C drive is full on its own, then maybe it's time to think about changing the protection. For continuous use, we recommend avoiding test alpha and beta versions of products, which often save additional data to files.

Malicious

Of course, do not forget about Some of them are just designed to fill with trash cans. data hard disk. Usually, to restore performance, it is enough to find and remove the malware using the appropriate applications. An excellent solution is a free program from Dr.Web called CureIT, as well as Removal Tool from Kaspersky Lab.

Out of date browser entries

All programs for viewing pages on the Internet use a caching mechanism in order to speed up subsequent access and reduce traffic, thanks to which some data is stored on the drive. The more such records, the, as a rule, the faster the browser works, since it does not need to request data from the servers again. However, if the growth of the cache is not limited and is not periodically cleared, then the folder of such data can grow to an impressive size. So, in the latest versions of the popular Firefox program, you should open the settings through the top menu item and go to "Advanced". There it remains to select "Network" and click the "Clear" button. In "Chrome", the button for clearing the history, located in the "Personal data" section, is responsible for cleaning. When deleting cache files, it is important not to erase unnecessary ones: in Google Chrome, the choice is made by checking / unchecking the checkboxes.

Local proxies

Filesystem error

Before manual cleaning

Of course, the method of "fighting for free disk space" is not limited to the above methods. A great solution to keep in mind is to manually remove unnecessary software junk. There are many free programs that allow you to scan the selected drive and display the results in graphical form. Notable examples are Free Disc Analizer and Disctective. After starting and completing the assigned tasks, the user will be shown a window in which you can see which folders exist and how much space each of them takes. It also provides an analogue of the explorer, with which you can open the desired directory and delete unnecessary from there. As you can see from the above, if the C drive is full, then there is no reason to panic - all problems can be overcome on your own.

Nowadays power modern computers, we can say, has reached its limit, since they can perform tasks of any complexity (from simple calculations on a calculator to creating complex graphic images).

But, sooner or later, the user feels that the machine has become slower and the response time of the system has increased.

What can be removed from drive C to free up space on windows 7

Installed programs

Of course, the largest segment of memory on the disk is occupied by all kinds of programs that the user installed and after a while stopped using them, forgetting about them.

To see their list, click: Start - Control Panel - Remove Programs. From this command menu, you can also completely delete your selected files.

It is important to know: as practice shows, in this way, you can clear several gigabytes of disk space at a time.

Emptying the recycle bin

The Recycle Bin is a temporary storage location for deleted files. A separate segment of memory in the computer is allocated for it, which can become clogged over time. To delete all files from this storage, you need to: Select the appropriate icon - Click on it with the right mouse button - Select the "Empty Trash" context menu.

It is important to know: files larger than 10 Gigabytes are immediately deleted, bypassing the trash can (it is impossible to restore them later).

Downloads folder

On the computer, you can watch movies, play games and do many other operations that require installation additional programs and if you are used to downloading them all through torrent trackers, then in the Downloads folder there are many files you do not need, which take up precious space in the system.

As a rule, you can find this pack along the following path: My Computer - Left dock bar - Download folder. When you open it, you will surely find a lot of files, images and music. You can delete them in a few clicks. To do this, follow these steps:

select all files;
put them in the basket;
empty the trash.

It is important to know: but, before deleting the contents in the folder, it is recommended to carefully review all the files, since there is a high probability that you can delete something you need.

To ensure the proper operation of all programs in Windows there is a Temp package, where all temporary files are stored after installing programs. For example, it might be additional antivirus software and the like, but after these programs have been removed, residual files take up disk space.

In order to fix this, you need to follow the path: My Computer - C drive - Windows - Temp(after deleting all the contents, it is imperative to clean the basket).

It is important to know: files that cannot be deleted may be present in the folder. Of course, you can skip them, but if you need a complete system cleaning, then they are removed using special utilities(for example, Unlocker), which unlock this feature in one click.

You can clean up disk space using the built-in utility. To do this, you need to open:

my pc;
right-click on it and go to properties.

In front of you you will see an additional context menu, where the Disk Cleanup menu item will be located in the General tab.

By choosing this action, the computer will start automatically picking up unnecessary files, in its opinion, and after a few minutes of waiting it will give you a whole list with files and programs, where you can delete them by checking the box.

It is important to know: this method is also relevant for other versions of the OS from Microsoft.

Swap files are a system file that is used for storage separate parts programs in cases where any data does not fit on the disk due to lack of space. As a rule, the system places small-gigabyte files there.

But, the paging files have one small snag, it is impossible to delete them even with the help of special programs. But, it is possible to transfer them to disk, where there is much more space.

To do this, go to the following path: My Computer - Select desired disk RMB - Properties - Additional system parameters - Options - Advanced - Change - specify the required disk.

It is important to know: you will not be able to transfer much from there, since as disk space is freed up, the operating system automatically moves files to the necessary partitions.

Hibernation mode

Hibernation mode is a special built-in utility that allows, by turning off the computer, to save all open programs without losing progress (that is, they work offline).

A similar effect is obtained with the help of the fact that running programs load their cache to the system disk, thus clogging it up. In order to disable this mode, you need to do the following:

Start menu;
the command line is entered in the search column;
a black dialog box opens in front of us, in which you need to enter: powercfg.exe -h off and press Enter.

It is important to know: after restarting the computer, you will find that there is much more space on the system disk.

Additional utilities

To clean up disk space, special software add-ons and utilities are used, which are designed to completely remove files and other garbage from the system. In this segment, the CCleaner utility is very popular.

You can download the utility from the official website and after installing it on your computer, get to work.

Important to know: CCleaner provides full ability to delete all files in manual or automatic mode.

Conclusion

That's the whole list of what can be removed from drive C to free up space on windows 7. Well, so that the user does not have to waste his time removing unnecessary garbage, it is worth remembering the main rule of an experienced IT specialist - Do not install extra programs and don't forget to delete them!

In the first figure, we see the main window of the program, in which, by clicking on the "Analysis" button, we can determine what is superfluous on the computer. After the end of the analysis, click the "Clean" button and the program will instantly remove the "garbage" from the computer, while showing how much space is freed and where.
Now you can uninstall unnecessary programs. To do this, go to the "Service" item, select unnecessary program, click on "Uninstall" and agree to complete removal(Figure 2).

Further, to be sure that there is definitely nothing superfluous left, we return to the "Analysis" item, again we do a check and see what the result of our cleaning is.

You may get the following - this simple and free program is able to clean your computer well and safely from the accumulated "garbage". There have been cases that some users freed up to 40 gigabytes of disk space, this may be the case if the computer has not been cleaned for a long time.

Everything seems to be fine, but the CCleaner program automatically cleans and cures the computer only from programs and their traces in the system, but user data, for example: video, music, documents, will have to be deleted manually. At the same time, it is not always possible to find all the extra space eaters on the disk, especially if you use video and photo processing programs. The fact is that such programs like to leave temporary data on the hard disk.
Looking for such files, you can waste a lot of time. Some users, in order not to suffer with freeing up disk space, simply reinstall Windows.

An interesting program "WinDirStat" will help us to solve the problem of finding unnecessary large files. Like the first one, it is free and easy to use. But it requires more attention, since it simply shows all the files on the disk, and you yourself already decide what to delete.

And so, in Figure 5, the program has already performed the analysis and gave us the result. Now, firstly, we check the "Files" folder, there may be temporary files left behind by some programs, you can safely delete them.

Next, you need to pay attention to the right side of the window. There the files are sorted by color. It is recommended not to delete anything except video and audio files, believe me, there will be a lot of free space.
Next, we check if there is anything superfluous in the "Users" folder; videos from the editor can also be copied there or downloaded from the Internet. Do not forget about the download folder, it can often be pumped into it from the Internet, and then forgotten. For example, a film weighing twenty gigabytes.

1. Windows temporary files

The first thing to do in such cases is to delete temporary Windows files... To do this, you need to delete all the contents of the folders:

\ Temp
\ WINDOWS \ TEMP

for Windows XP:
\ Documents and Settings \<имя_пользователя>\ Local Settings \ Temp
\ Documents and Settings \<имя_пользователя>\ Local Settings \ Temporary Internet Files
\ Documents and Settings \<имя_пользователя>\ Local Settings \ History

for Windows 7, Vista:
\ Users \<имя_пользователя>\ AppData \ Local \ Temp
\ Users \<имя_пользователя>\ AppData \ Local \ Microsoft \ Windows \ Temporary Internet Files
\ Users \<имя_пользователя>\ AppData \ Local \ Microsoft \ Windows \ History

In all "animal assemblies" Windows, the location of the temporary folder may differ. To find the temporary folder, follow these steps:

The best way to delete files is file manager, such as Total Commander because: a) the folder Local Settings usually hidden and the user may simply not find it; b) in the folder Temp there are several files that cannot be deleted because they are currently in use by the system. For Windows Explorer it becomes an unsolvable task and he cannot completely empty the folder:

For Total Commander, both of these questions are not a problem.

2. Windows update files

After updating the operating system in the folder \ WINDOWS \ there are still many folders, the names of which begin with "$ ..." They can be deleted too:

3. Browser cache

Internet browsers Opera, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer (especially version 6) sometimes leave behind a huge amount of garbage on the system disk, which is also useful to clean at times. This is done like this:

for Mozilla Firefox: Tools -> Erase Recent History... Select item "Everything", press "OK":

for Opera: Settings -> Delete personal data... You can expand the list " Detailed setting", Press" Delete«:

for Chrome: Chrome menu (on toolbar) -> Tools -> Delete browsing data... Select the item " for all the time", Press the button "Clear the history":

for Internet Explorer: Service -> Delete browsing history or Service -> Internet options -> General -> Browsing history -> Delete button ...

4. Downloads browsers, torrent clients, DC, MediaGet, DownloadMaster, etc.

for Mozilla Firefox: Tools -> Options -> General -> Path to save files:

for Opera: Settings -> Advanced -> Downloads - > Save downloaded files to:

for Chrome: Chrome Menu (on Toolbar) -> Settings -> Advanced Settings:

for uTorrent: Settings -> Program Settings -> Folders

For other programs that download something from the Internet or local network the principle of setting is the same.

5. Databases of mail programs (TheBat, Mozilla Tunderbird, Microsoft Office Outlook, etc.)

With an intensive exchange of information using mail programs, the size of their databases can grow to incredible sizes over time. It is advisable to take this moment into account even at the stage of installing and configuring these programs, but if you have not done this, it does not matter, you can still fix it.

for TheBat: Drawer -> Properties mailbox-> Files and directories:

for Microsoft Office Outlook : Service -> Accounts Email-> View or change existing accounts-> Create Outlook Data File:

Check if everything can be removed correctly and at the same time unnecessary file from drive "C" here: Tools -> Options -> Mail Settings-> Data files:

For other mail programs, everything is configured according to the same principles.

7. Temporary program files

Programs that work with large amounts of data, such as disc burning programs (e.g. Nero Burning ROM), video (e.g. Pinnacle Studio), audio editors, image processing programs (e.g. Adobe Photoshop) create temporary files of large size (the so-called "cache") and, if there is not enough free space to create them, they refuse to work normally, various failures occur. To prevent this, it is necessary to transfer their temporary files to another disk in a timely manner:

Nero Burning ROM: File -> Presets -> Cache:

Pinnacle Studio: Settings -> Project Options:

Adobe Photoshop: Editing-> Settings -> Performance:

8. Games

9. My Documents and Desktop

This problem has been going on since the days of the very first dinosaurs. Windows versions... 8 generations of the operating system have already changed, and user folders are still located on the system disk. Moreover, it got worse: starting with Windows Vista additional folders were added to them, such as "Pictures", "Videos", "Music", "Downloads", "Games", "Contacts", "Searches", "Links" ...

There is also no standard procedure for moving all user folders to another local drive. There are only some possibilities, for example, in Windows XP you can transfer the My Documents folder:

Quite experienced and novice PC users have a bad habit of saving the necessary and most requested files to the desktop. A dozen or two gigabytes of information on the desktop is, unfortunately, not uncommon! What can you advise? Only one thing is to completely abandon the use of these "excellent opportunities" and store all important information NOT on drive C... Moreover, the probability of losing information stored on the "C" drive is much higher than on any other logical drive.

10.Programs

Look through the list of installed programs and remove those that you will no longer use, especially the large ones:

11. Sleep mode

If it doesn't help much, disabling the use of hibernation will save you from 1 to 5 additional gigabytes.

for Windows XP: Start-> Control Panel -> Appearance and Themes -> Display -> Screensaver -> Power -> Sleep... Uncheck the box Allow the use of hibernation»

for Windows 7, Vista: Start -> Control Panel -> Power supply -> Setting up a power plan -> Putting your computer to sleep -> « Never". You can also turn off the sleep function. Select "Change Extra options power ”and in the window find the sleep mode and turn it off. After disabling the "Sleep mode", you can delete hidden file hiberfil.sys in the root directory of the system disk. With the help of this, it is a little easier to do: just enter the command “ powercfg -hibernate -off«.

12. Other

Large files can appear in any other place on the system disk, where you would not expect to see it:

log files of some programs can grow up to many tens of gigabytes;
some of the users can safely hide and forget the "collection of videos". Where is the best place to do it? Of course, somewhere in the wilds of system folders on the "C" drive;
some program or plug-in for photoshop stores its database (10-100 GB in size) in a user folder;

In such cases, it is necessary to check the size of all folders (including hidden and system ones) and find the "culprit" by excluding them. With the help of the Total Commander program, this is again easier to do: it is enough to open folder press the key combination Ctrl + Alt + Enter and the size of all attached files and folders will appear at a glance:

Another case: the folder for temporary files of Avira antivirus has grown to an incredible 16 GB:

13. Cart

Emptying the trash can is a fairly obvious way to clean up discs from already deleted files, but sometimes quite a large number of files accumulate there, which also negatively affects the performance of the computer.

13. Cleaning programs

There are a huge number of programs that promise by pressing one, maximum two buttons to solve all the user's problems with computer performance and raise it to unprecedented heights. As practice and common sense show, these programs can be solved only by some (or rather only 1, 2 and 3, and something else on the little things) from the above problems, which in this particular case may well turn out to be not the most important problem. Although automating this process saves time: it is much faster to automatically delete temporary files than to clean them up manually. Standard program disk cleanup ( Start -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Disk Cleanup) is slightly worse than alternative ones (eg Ccleaner).

14. What else is written on the Internet

There are also a lot of fables, myths, unverified facts and outright disinformation in “our Internet”. These, from my point of view, include:

deleting, resizing, moving the paging file;
removal of backup copies of system files, drivers;
removal or modification of operating system components;
removal of duplicate files of the operating system;
formatting drive C.

It is not advisable to touch the components of the operating system without a clear understanding of what exactly you are doing and why.

15. Summary

Long gone are the days when Windows, a bunch of programs and a lot of data were placed in a 1 GB hard disk, and at the same time they also managed to work and play games. Memory capacity on hard drives the average user has already crossed the mark of several Terabytes, but the problems remain the same. Well, artificial intelligence will not replace experience and common sense anytime soon. Keep track of the free space - for the comfortable operation of the operating system, it should be at least not less than 1/3 of the disk capacity, or not less (and preferably more) several gigabytes... The final chord of this work, to achieve an even better result, must be carried out.