Freeing Memory

You're talking about hard drive space, not memory. You should be storing all non-essential files such as photos, music, and docs on the D drive. Have you really deleted ALL temporary files? Did you empty the Recycle Bin too?

Does your laptop's power management include hibernation? That uses a lot of drive space.

WinDirStat is a program that shows exactly where the fat is. Check it out.

Ugawa said:

For example, there's a file called Winsxs which is taking up 10GB of the 30GB alone.

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Googling "Winsxs" will provide you with some insight. It's basically a storage bin for copies of program files to ensure that they run smoothly. You should not delete it, because it may make the programs you have installed stop running.

Here's a snippet from http://www.winvistaclub.com/f16.html:

The safest way to clean (the Winsxs folder), is by simply uninstalling applications which you don't require. However, this too is not fool proof, as many applications still leave behind their files here, since they may be shared between other applications. So the probability of dud unused dll's being left behind is quite high.

And if you are into trying out new software or installing and uninstalling frequently, you may notice that your winsxs size is indeed large, as Vista will store multiple copies of these dll files, in order to let multiple applications without compatibility problem.

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So, you should uninstall any programs you're not using. If that doesn't free up enough space, I suggest that you reformat and reinstall Windows. There's no safe way to go through this folder and delete things you don't need.

Ugawa said:

There's also a lot of files called TMP Files, are they temporary files which haven't been deleted yet?

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Yes, but you shouldn't just delete these either. Some of these files may be used by programs for various things (like autosaving documents). Deleting them can also cause issues with your programs.

Again, uninstall any programs you don't need, and reboot. If you don't regain enough space to work, then it's time to reformat.

Make sure to mention that reformatting erases everything!


Ugawa, you have two hard drives, then? Your second one, D:, is where you can move your pictures and personal files, etc. using Windows Explorer (look up any tutorial if you need one: moving folders, or moving files "Windows Explorer").

Keep your installed programs on C: because most programs put important parts on drive C: when they install. They don't like to be broken up, usually.

Go to Add/Remove Programs to see if you have any old programs you don't use. Beware of speaker or modem programs, etc. Just remove things you know are old programs you installed.

Go to Control Panel and select "Add or Remove Programs". There'll be a list of install programs along with the space they're taking up on your hard-disk. Remove ones you don't need.

The slowness of your machine is unlikely to be anything to do with it, though. You'll need to work out which processes are using up memory. To do that, right-click on the task bar and select "Task Manager". Clicking on the "Processes" tab will show you everything currently running. The processes with large memory use or high CPU are the ones slowing your machine up.

And Priene is actually talking about memory

You must have quite a bit installed and/or many times updated. My winsxs directory (it's a folder, not a file) is only 9.28 GB (out of 14.8 GB total for Windwoes), and I'm a reg'lar terror when it comes to trying out software.

It does no harm to install anything that is willing on a different drive or partition. That's what install options are for. I have done it ever since I had the space to do it in, from win98 on up. Too many programs do throw a lot of files on C anyway, though.

What process did you go through to delete temporary files? I do a daily reaming with Ccleaner. I don't trust Winderz to wipe itself thoroughly lol

You can't "delete" hibernation. You need to consider whether or not it is worth the huge waste of drive space. What it does is (short simplified version) it allows you to turn the computer off but without losing any open windows, processes, or work in progress. It saves a snapshot of everything that is loaded into memory in one huge file on the hard drive, called hiberfil.sys

In theory, hibernation is supposed to be a quick way of waking your computer up than booting from a "cold" state. But it isn't all that great. I don't think you are actually using it, but it is probably active and dragging its share of butt. Since I don't know which flavor of Windwoes you have, here are simple directions for:

XP
or
Vista

After disabling and rebooting, you should be able to delete the file hiberfil.sys -- or if it's Vista, just follow the instructions linked above all the way.

whew I'll get into some other things later

You don't have much memory left. But more importantly is how much RAM do you have? If you have a lot of applications on your desk top, try filing the ones you don't use frequently away. RAM is where you're going to get your speed. Sounds like you need both a hard drive upgrade and more RAM.

There used to be a great utility called MemoryX which did what you asked about - just double click and it would release the clogged RAM into the cache. There are probably a few good memory accelerators out there in the googles but with the cheapness of very fast hardware with utilities like Task Manager built in and waiting to be used (and Disk Cleanup and Defragmenter, Disk Utility if you're a Mac user) these programs might not be coming out as fast as even a few years ago. Check Tucows and Slashdot for the skinny on these sorts of utilities.