Deleting Windows Files to Free Space

jonnyp11

jonnyp11

Active Member
K so trying to upgrade from the release preview to the full copy of windows 8 and need to clear 20gbs of space on my C drive for whatever BS reason. Now of course my C drive has to be a 60GB SSD, so 20gbs is a lot, so i'm looking to see where all my drive has gone to because I only have 3GBs left. I look through the windows file browser and the numbers just aren't adding up, they add to like 20GBs, that's 40 short of what is currently taken. So i do some googling, download a new browser, and lo-and-behold, the windows folder has somehow grown to 41GBS! FOURTY ONE GIGS! How is this possible?

So how can I shrink this down, i know there is no way on earth the core windows 8 can be over 20gbs, pretty sure when it was a fresh install it was at most 14GBs. I tried CCleaner and it maybe deleted 800mb's total from the computer from all the files, not just windows. So what can I do?

I posted this here because the desktop area gets more attention than the other areas, all the ones this fit in might have gotten suggestions from one or 2 people.

EDIT: #0GBs are in the System32 folder and about 6GBs are in the WinSxS folder
 
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jonnyp11 said:
K so trying to upgrade from the release preview to the full copy of windows 8 and need to clear 20gbs of space on my C drive for whatever BS reason. Now of course my C drive has to be a 60GB SSD, so 20gbs is a lot, so i'm looking to see where all my drive has gone to because I only have 3GBs left. I look through the windows file browser and the numbers just aren't adding up, they add to like 20GBs, that's 40 short of what is currently taken. So i do some googling, download a new browser, and lo-and-behold, the windows folder has somehow grown to 41GBS! FOURTY ONE MOTHER F-ING GIGS, WTF! How is this possible?

So how can I shrink this down, i know there is no way on earth the core windows 8 can be over 20gbs, pretty sure when it was a fresh install it was at most 14GBs. I tried CCleaner and it maybe deleted 800mb's total from the computer from all the files, not just windows. So what can I do?

I posted this here because the desktop area gets more attention than the other areas, all the ones this fit in might have gotten suggestions from one or 2 people.

EDIT: #0GBs are in the System32 folder and about 6GBs are in the WinSxS folder
Click to expand...

how much memory do you have

your PC will create a hiberfil.sys file that is the same size

for starters, disable that by running from an elevated command prompt "powercfg.exe /hibernate off"

then move your pagefile to a regular hdd, those two things I can suggest up front
 
It's a 60GB SSD (~55 available), with like 3GBs open right now. And i have a Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB drive for storage.
 
Check to see how much space system restore is using.

By the way, please refrain from the bad language.... you know better
 
I knew i probably shouldn't have said that but that pisses me off, pretty sure they should know better than that too.

No page file on C, windows automatically made it on D apparently

the restore folder in the system32 folder was only 4kbs
 
Nothing else is there.

And now that it's rebooted, the new program is saying the same as the windows file browser, that the windows file is only 15gb's and the sys32 is only like 3 gigs, WHAT IS GOING ON????????????????????? oh and the space remaining went down to 5.5 gigs, all i did was do some disk cleans with the windows utility, apparently that's a big mistake
 
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like others have said, be sure that the page file is either moved off the c drive, or turned down to 800mb. be sure to turn off hybernation mode, as these 2 things should give you roughly about 1.5x - 2x the amount of ram you have.

also, reducing the size of your recycling bin MAY give back some space.
 
Disable hibernation.

Really though, reformatting and reinstalling is the best option. I was never a fan of upgrading, I always prefer clean installing. Move the stuff you need to your hard drive and then just Windows 8 on the SSD.
 
You never said how much space system restore is using.
Hard to tell from the 1st post how much free space you think you're supposed to have.
Curious to know how much free space Diskpart says it has.
Windows won't put pf on a secondary drive so sounds like there might be some during/after install settings & optimizations that weren't done.
 
Pretty sure i said i disabled hibernate using an elevated command prompt, the pagefile is on my D drive, and the restore files are empty.

The windows installer says i need 20gb free to do an install
 
jonnyp11 said:
Pretty sure i said i disabled hibernate using an elevated command prompt, the pagefile is on my D drive, and the restore files are empty.

The windows installer says i need 20gb free to do an install
Click to expand...

I think you're backed into a corner here man, unless you can ghost the current drive to a bigger HDD... do the upgrade, clean it up, and then ghost it back.
 
jonnyp11 said:
The windows installer says i need 20gb free to do an install
Click to expand...
Then you need more than 20Gb free space.

55 - 18 (we'll say)for os/os growth = 37
37 - (20% of 55 total and we'll call it>)10GB = 27GB remaining for programs/other.

If you can't install the os because there's not enough space, then you have to create enough free space so that after the install you have that 10GB cushion that you never fill.

That 10 will get used because the controller doesn't just use whatever free cells are there. It will manipulate already stored data in order to free up the corresponding cells it needs for current data. This is also pertains to wear leveling.

When it's too full and you ask it to do something, it has to move already stored data in order to move that current/something data. Twice as much = 1/2 as fast and wears faster than usual.

If you don't/can't fresh install then you'll have to remove some programs/games. Then letting it idle while logged off to give garbage collection a few mins, wouldn't hurt.

How much free does Disk Management say?
 
Like i said, i searched for the file and it showed empty. Following that only showed that it was on but the max was set to 0% and it was empty, so it did nothing.

How can i ghost it or create a full restore point, have the file on my F3 1TB, then clean the install to the core system, update, then use the restore or something and get all my settings back? or is this possible
 
jonnyp11 said:
Like i said, i searched for the file and it showed empty. Following that only showed that it was on but the max was set to 0% and it was empty, so it did nothing.

How can i ghost it or create a full restore point, have the file on my F3 1TB, then clean the install to the core system, update, then use the restore or something and get all my settings back? or is this possible
Click to expand...

Well my methods are going to involve a lot of monkeying around. If I had absolutely no alternative but to live in that 60GB SSD I would find a temporary drive to use as a scratch and then ghost the 60 to it (using Norton ghost). Boot that drive, "upgrade it", clean it up as much as possible... then ghost it back to the 60. You're looking at tons of hassle for minimal return, when SSD's are finally getting close to 50 cents a gig.
 
cwizardtx said:
Well my methods are going to involve a lot of monkeying around. If I had absolutely no alternative but to live in that 60GB SSD I would find a temporary drive to use as a scratch and then ghost the 60 to it (using Norton ghost). Boot that drive, "upgrade it", clean it up as much as possible... then ghost it back to the 60. You're looking at tons of hassle for minimal return, when SSD's are finally getting close to 50 cents a gig.
Click to expand...

I have a 1TB drive in the computer right now that has over 500GBs of games on it. I got the SSD last may i think when i built this cuz it was cheaper than a HDD and i planned to get a drive for games and stuff soon anyways, which i now have

So how do i do this? use something to ghost to the 1tb, boot to it, upgrade on it, then ghost it back to the ssd?
 
jonnyp11 said:
I have a 1TB drive in the computer right now that has over 500GBs of games on it. I got the SSD last may i think when i built this cuz it was cheaper than a HDD and i planned to get a drive for games and stuff soon anyways, which i now have

So how do i do this? use something to ghost to the 1tb, boot to it, upgrade on it, then ghost it back to the ssd?
Click to expand...

Mannnnn you don't want to use your 1TB as the scratch drive, because it's going to be wiped out when you ghost to it. Do you have a 3rd drive you can use, or borrow?
 
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