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Reclaim Lost Disk Space in Windows Vista. |
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| If you get the 'Low Disk Space' system tray balloon notifications, from time to time, you may have to consider options to free up some disk space fast. Here are some steps you may take to reclaim lost disk space in Vista. |
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| 1) Run Vista's Disk Cleanup Utility. Type Disk Cleanup in Vista's Start Menu and hit enter to bring it up. Run it. You may also wish to consider the More Options that it offers. You may also want to see Enhanced Version of the Disk Cleanup Tool. |
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| 2) Uninstall programs that you do not use, through the Control Panel. |
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| 3) You can also free up additional disk space by removing all but the most recent system restore point using the Disk Cleanup utility. |
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| 4) Download and install freeware CCleaner. I suggest you download it from MajorGeeks as it is a non-Yahoo toolbar version. It is a good and a safe utility which will help you remove your unwanted junk files in a few clicks. |
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| 5) Disable Hibernation and delete Hiberfil.sys, if the space problem is critical on your System Drive. Its a hidden file on the root directory of your system drive. Open Control Panel. Type Hibernate in the search bar. Select turn Hibernate On / Off. |
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| 6) If you have some data files of pictures that you don't access frequently, consider compressing them using the zip or the rar formats. Also consider moving them to another drive or back them up externally, instead. |
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| 7) If you have SP1 installed please also have a look at Reclaim Disk Space after Windows Vista SP1 install. |
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| 8) One option not considered by many is the ability of your Windows to compress files and folders. Most feel that after compression, re accessing is slow and takes time to open such compressed files. I urge you to try it. You will find that the time difference is imperceptible. But you will be able to reclaim a lot of disk space this way. Do note however, that you should not compress the Windows or the Program Files Folder using this method. |
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| To do so, right click the folder, you wish to compress, click Advanced, check Compress contents to save disk space, Clik OK, Now Apply to all folders and sub folders, click OK again. |
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| I do not suggest deleting prefetch, log, bak, thumbs.db files for varying reasons. Every time you clean up the Prefetch folder, you delay application load times, the next time you launch them. Its only after the second time that you regain optimal application load times. Only one Prefetch file is created per application. Windows cleans this folder at 128 entries, down to the 32 most used Application's prefetcher files. In Vista this folder does not occupy more than around 50MB. Cleaning the Prefetcher can therefore be construed actually as a temporary self-inflicted un-optimization ! Log files may be required during uninstall's, and if they are not found, application uninstall may fail. You never know when you require bak files. Thumbs.db files help you in loading thumbnail images faster, and in any case get re-created; unless ofcourse you disable thumbnail cache-ing. Do not also consider deleting anything from the Winsxs folder. |
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| Having Vista check on your free space all the time causes resource to be utilized after all and can also be a nuisance to some. |
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| Should you wish to disable the 'Low Disk Space' popup's, run regedit and navigate to key |
HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ Explorer |
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| Here, create a DWORD value and call it NoLowDiskSpaceChecks. Then double click on NoLowDiskSpaceChecks, and enter its value 1. Click OK. To re-enable the notification, change it back to 0. |
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| While it may be tempting to disable the Low disk space notification, it is NOT advisable to ignore the issue, esp if it is occurring on your System Drive. |
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| If you still, really need to know what's eaten up your Disk Space, use freeware Disktective. It does not need to be installed. Just copy the program files onto your hard disk, double click on the .exe file and Disktective will start. You will be able to know which file or folder is occupying what space. |
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These Links May Interest You:
How To View & Manage Clipboard In Vista
How To Change Windows Vista Sounds |
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