[Tollerowner]

I have a Dell Mini, running WXP.
It has a 7.1gb drive, with 608mb free space.

I have almost nothing on it. No pictures, no videos, no music.
I have Office 97 (yeah, 97...) and MS Securities Essentials.
That is it, except for what came with the computer.

I have deleted all the sample music and pictures, and everything else that I possibly could.
Then ran cleanup a few times. Still have only 608mb free space.

Two issues. I don't think they are big enough to matter, but still...
1) In MyComputer/ProgramFiles there are folders for Messenger, microsoftfrontpage, msngamingzone, moviemaker, xerox, netmeeting. I don't use these things, but it refuses to let me delete them. Any way to do this? It would help a little.
2) I have 400mb of java6 updates and 450mb of .net framework updates. Any way to delete them and get current versions, saving the 850mb?

But as I say, these are small. What the heck is taking up 5gb that isn't showing up, and how do I get rid of it.

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The minimum hardware requirements for Windows XP Home Edition are:

* Pentium 233-megahertz (MHz) processor or faster (300 MHz is recommended)
* At least 64 megabytes (MB) of RAM (128 MB is recommended)
* At least 1.5 gigabytes (GB) of available space on the hard disk
* CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive
* Keyboard and a Microsoft Mouse or some other compatible pointing device
* Video adapter and monitor with Super VGA (800 x 600)or higher resolution
* Sound card
* Speakers or headphones

Going off this if your hd is originally 7.1 gigs total then you would have 4.6 gigs left.
Factor in programs and that number would easily fall to 2.5 to 3 gigs
Try the following and see if it opens more space for you.



Download TFC by OldTimer to your desktop

• Please double-click TFC.exe to run it. (Note: If you are running on Vista, right-click on the file and choose Run As Administrator).
• It will close all programs when run, so make sure you have saved all your work before you begin.
• Click the Start button to begin the process. Depending on how often you clean temp files, execution time should be anywhere from a few seconds to a minute or two. Let it run uninterrupted to completion.
• Once it's finished it should reboot your machine. If it does not, please manually reboot the machine yourself to ensure a complete clean.

Download Auslogics Defrag from the link in my signature below. Auslogics Defrag in my opinion is better because:

It does a more comprehensive job at Defragging
It will actually show you what it is doing
At the end of working it will show you how much speed you picked up
You can view a online log of the files that Auslogics defragged

[rshaffer61]

The minimum hardware requirements for Windows XP Home Edition are:

* Pentium 233-megahertz (MHz) processor or faster (300 MHz is recommended)
* At least 64 megabytes (MB) of RAM (128 MB is recommended)
* At least 1.5 gigabytes (GB) of available space on the hard disk
* CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive
* Keyboard and a Microsoft Mouse or some other compatible pointing device
* Video adapter and monitor with Super VGA (800 x 600)or higher resolution
* Sound card
* Speakers or headphones

Going off this if your hd is originally 7.1 gigs total then you would have 4.6 gigs left.
Factor in programs and that number would easily fall to 2.5 to 3 gigs
Try the following and see if it opens more space for you.



Download TFC by OldTimer to your desktop

• Please double-click TFC.exe to run it. (Note: If you are running on Vista, right-click on the file and choose Run As Administrator).
• It will close all programs when run, so make sure you have saved all your work before you begin.
• Click the Start button to begin the process. Depending on how often you clean temp files, execution time should be anywhere from a few seconds to a minute or two. Let it run uninterrupted to completion.
• Once it's finished it should reboot your machine. If it does not, please manually reboot the machine yourself to ensure a complete clean.

Download Auslogics Defrag from the link in my signature below. Auslogics Defrag in my opinion is better because:

It does a more comprehensive job at Defragging
It will actually show you what it is doing
At the end of working it will show you how much speed you picked up
You can view a online log of the files that Auslogics defragged

[Macboatmaster]

Firstly
Is there anything on the computer that is vitally important. I know you say there is hardly anything, but is there any important documents, pictures etc. ie: personal data.
If so back it up to external drive, DVD/CD, or if you do not have anything else - flash drive.

Then start in Safe Mode that is F8 and select Safe Mode, that is just Safe Mode, not safe mode with networking.
When in Safe Mode and it now cannot start to download updates of course.
Go My computer, right click the HDD carrying windows and the main file system
Click Properties, click Tools, click error checking, click check now, click to check the box automatically fix file system errors, click start and agree to run on restart.
DO SO and DO NOT INTERRUPT it, it may take some time.
If that does not work post back and we will have to try another way.

This was being typed before "rshaffer61"`s post appeared.
DO AS HE HAS POSTED.

Edited by Macboatmaster, 18 October 2010 - 12:30 PM.

[Tollerowner]

I ran THC and my free space went from 600mb to 900mb.
I ran the defrag program. It didn't do much, but it said I had disk and registry problems.
It cleaned up my disk problems and I went to 1gb. It wanted a credit card to do my registry problems.
I downloaded Glary Utilities that I have used on other computers. It fixed 450 registry errors.

Glary also lists your biggest files. I found the following.
pagefile.sys 300mb
3dce66ae0dd7128+++ 231mb
msi12.tmp 65mb
driver.cab 60mb (c:\i386)
driver.cab 60mb (c:\windows/driver cache\i386
838359e47772a04d997+++ 55mb
15 more of files with big numbers all 55mb and dated in June
bit91.tmp 55mb
data1.cab 45mb (adobe reader)
adberdr920-en-us.msi
rt.jar 41mb (3 copies in various java directories)


Getting rid of java and adobe reader would be great.
Can I get rid of any of these files?

Thanks much.

[Macboatmaster]

I cannot comment on Glary Utilities but having had a quick look at it, it includes a registry cleaner and I would not let it anywhere near my computer.
If you have any doubt about registry cleaners, see the link on my signature notes.
This view is held my the majority of people on this site - DO NOT USE A REGISTRY CLEANER.
Run the chkdsk I suggested in my last post.

After you have run chkdsk, if it has fixed errors and providing it does not report BAD SECTORS
Go Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Cleanup and post what is shown please in the various headings of disk cleanup.
Do this by pressing the print screen key, then start programs, accessories, paint and on the edittab, click paste. (You may need to make two screenshots to fit them on.) Then click the File tab , click Save As and in the lower box. DO NOT save as the default BMP Bitmap image, save as JPEG. Then attach those to your next post.
After that we will check the restore points and we may then gain some disk space by deleting all except the most recent restore point.
DO NOT DO THAT YET.
We will look at the further cleaning and uninstalling of some programs later.

Edited by Macboatmaster, 18 October 2010 - 03:23 PM.

[123Runner]

You can't get rid of Java but you can get rid of adobe reader and use something like PDF xchange viewer. It is less intrusive, works just as good as reader, and you can use it to make changes to PDF documents.

[rshaffer61]

There's also Foxit reader for PDF files.
If you have Microsoft Office you may want to consider Open Office.