Windows folder too big

Hi, A friend has problem with her computer. I went through the HJT process and cleaned up the registry and what not but the real problem is the hard drive. There seems to be too much saved in the windows folder. The computer is and was working fine except for the space on the harddrive. The windows folder is now 25GB, there is only 351mb free on the 40 GB hard drive. I compared to my laptop running windows XP and the windows folder is only about 4GB on my laptop. There just seems to be too much stuff in the windows folder. Thanks for any input.

Hi passingthought

This appears to be the machine you are referring to:
http://forums.whatthetech.com/Windows_usin…815#entry405815
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Please Run the PCPitstop Full Tests, here:
http://www.pcpitstop.com
Register and create a password
Accept the ActiveX component to allow your machine to run the Full Tests
Registering and accepting the ActiveX are both SAFE and FREE.
Full Tests is the first item in the left hand column of that page.

The Full Tests take about 2-3 minutes for most machines.
Once you have your Results, please post the TechExpress Link back here into this thread for review.
TechExpress is the last item on the list in the yellow box in upper right area of any Results page.
Post the entire URL link information back here into this Forum thread.


With that additional information / overview of the machine's functioning, we may be able to provide recommendations.

Best Regards

Hi,
Thanks for the response, here are the results from the pitstop. Yes the above thread in HJT was mine.

http://www.pcpitstop.com/techexpress/default.asp

http://www.pcpitstop.com/techexpress.asp?id=JD0AHW69S7VSDHZV

There seems to be too much saved in the windows folder.

The above is a bit of an "under-statement".

Hard Drives, particularly the hard drive that contains the Operating System, (Windows XP) need between 25%-50% to function adequately. Once the Free Space drops below 11% Windows will even be unable to Defrag and perform other disk maintenance functions.
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You will need a CD/DVD Burner or External Hard Drive, or a second machine into which you can Slave that Hard Drive, in order to SAVE various Media and Documents that presently reside on the Hard Drive.

Initially set your Goal at 25% Free Space and then we can have another look at the machine's performance.
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The machine does have a couple of application programs that are not strictly "necessary" and can be uninstalled or swapped for other applications that are not as demanding, while still providing the same function.
But those few application programs do not account for the overwhelmingly used up Hard Drive space.

What you will need to do is SAVE to external location like; (External Hard Drive, second hard drive, CD/DVD or Online Data storage) any important files, data, documents and media that the owner wishes to preserve.

Since the machine appears to have only CD-ROM, you will need to obtain an external CD/DVD writer or obtain and install an internal CD/DVD burning unit. Or obtain an external USB connected Hard Drive, or remove the Hard Drive and Slave it in another machine that has extra Free Space or has CD/DVD burning capability.

Keep us posted with your progress.
Once you get a large portion of the saved data, documents, and media saved to external location, and have deleted those related files, we'll need a fresh PCPitstop Full Test TechExpress so we can proceed to work on the other important maintenance that needs to be performed on this machine.

Best Regards

You might try to do a simple disk cleaning to rid the system of unneeded files. I see that CCleaner is installed, I would use that. I would also go through Control Panel, Add and Remove Programs and uninstall any programs that are not used (this can also be done through CCleaner). Once the system is clean of crud, it would probably do good to boot into Safe Mode and run defrag.