The memory on the windows 8 drive is running out. Space on the C drive is running out. Disk cleaning using Windows

Recently I met a poll "how much space do you have on the C drive", this prompted me to show you how to clean the C drive from unnecessary files while not deleting anything superfluous.

As the survey showed, most people have only 100 GB allocated for the C drive, of which a couple of GB are free. This is not surprising, the OS and the necessary software take up 50 GB, plus garbage, temporary files and, as a result, the memory is all occupied. Let's get started and remove all the trash from the computer in order.

Quick clean Windows 10

We clean the downloads

I think everyone knows what this folder is and why it got full. If anyone is in the "Downloads" tank, this is the place where all your files that you downloaded / saved on the Internet are located. To find this folder on your computer, open "Computer / My Computer" and "Downloads" will be in the left menu.

If, for some reason, this folder is not in the left menu, then go to: Drive C, Users, "Your PC username", Downloads.

Now, as you understand, I propose to delete everything from this folder, except for what you need. It is better to move the rest of the files that will be useful to you to another disk.

To move files to another section, hold down the "Ctrl" key and left-click on the files / folders you need. After you have selected everything, press "Ctrl" + "X" (Cut) then open the folder where you want to move and press "Ctrl" + "V".

We transfer the downloads folder to disk D, E, F

If you have little space on the C drive and you cannot / want to expand it, it would be logical to transfer the downloads to another drive, where the capacity allows it. It won't work just like that, so you have to use the following method:

1. Go to drive C, Users, "Your PC Username", "Downloads".
2. Right-click on the "Downloads" folder and select "Properties" from the menu.
3. In the top menu, go to "Location".
4. Here is the path of your folder, which you can change manually or click "Find folder".

1. After you have selected a folder on another drive, click "Apply" and you're done!

Removing temporary files

Temporary files are stored in the "Temp" folder and they are all unnecessary junk that clogs up your computer. These files remain after installing programs, updates, etc. You can delete absolutely everything without even looking at what is there.

First, let's open the Temp folder. Open "Drive C", then "Windows" then open the "Temp" folder. Select all files with the keyboard shortcut "Ctrl" + "A" and delete them.

Windows may notify you to uninstall specific file possible only with Administrator rights. Click yes / continue.

If you have Windows XP, then go to the next point, if Windows 7-10, then do the following:

In the search, on the start panel write "% temp%" and open the folder.

Alternative way to open: in the address bar, enter "C: \ Users \ UserName \ AppData \ Local \ Temp". Where "UserName" you need to enter the username of your PC.

In this folder, delete everything that you can delete. Personally, I have collected almost 2 GB of temporary files in 1 month.

We carry out cleaning with the Ccleaner utility

I would like to suggest that you use a program called "ccleaner". This is very powerful utility, which does half of what was said above, and also clears the cache, browser history and whatnot. If you don't need to clean something, for example, your browser history, you can turn it off in the settings.

In any case, I advise everyone to use it, so let's see where to download it and how to use it:

Go to the official website "https://download.ccleaner.com/ccsetup541.exe" and download the program.

Install and run the program. During installation, uncheck the boxes next to unnecessary programs (Avast, etc.).

Go to the "Options" tab, then "Setting" and select Russian instead of English.

Go to the cleaning tab and uncheck the checkboxes everywhere that you do not want to clean (browser history, etc.). After that click "cleanup".

You will be pleasantly surprised, after cleaning the program will show how many MB it has freed up your computer.

Removing unnecessary programs

Over time, a large amount of software is collected, which in fact is not used. You installed something yourself, something installed itself (viruses from mail.ru, avast and others ...). Earlier, I already wrote « » , so let's take a look at his example:

Remove the program in Windows 7:

1. Open the "Start" menu and click on "Control Panel". Now find "Programs and Features" in the list.

1. In the menu you see all the programs that are installed on your computer. Select "Avast" among them, click on it 1 time and click "delete" in the top menu.

1. You will open the program installer, in which there is an inconspicuous delete button at the very bottom. Click on it. After that, the antivirus will try to convince you, but you continue what you started and do not believe him.

1. Ready! Next time, be careful when installing software and games.

Remove Avast in Windows 10:

1. Open "Start", then "Settings", after "System".

1. Find "Avast" in the list, click on it, and then click "delete".

In this way, remove all programs that you do not use. Do not delete nothing you're not sure about, especially software from Adobe and Microsoft, and the rest is not really important.

Increase the space on the C drive

Increasing the space on the C drive at the expense of another drive is quite simple and in order not to take a million screenshots, I suggest watching a short video:

We clean the basket

After you delete any file or folder, it goes to the trash in case you suddenly change your mind. These files accumulate there until you empty the trash manually or restore them back.

After such a global cleaning of the C drive, be sure to empty the trash can. In general, I recommend doing this regularly (once a week will be enough), especially since it does not take much time.

So that Empty trash, find on the desktop the icon with a trash can and the corresponding inscription, then click on it right click mouse and select "Empty Trash" from the menu. Ready! Case for 10 sec. and there is more disk space.

What not to do

Here I will try to list all possible mistakes inexperienced users, as well as mention the tips of other sites and explain why you should not do this (if you forgot something, add in the comments):

• Do not under any circumstances delete any files and folders on the C drive if they are there without your actions. Those. you can only delete the folders that you have created. Otherwise, it may crash the OS.
• Don't do anything with the hibernation file. Do not disable it, do not delete it. Only experienced users can properly disable it, so as not to be faced with system error... The megabytes won are not worth it.
• Do not disable or resize the paging file - this will affect the performance of your system.
• Standard "Disk Cleanup". In the properties of the computer there is a standard utility that supposedly cleans the C drive from garbage. Yes, it is, but for example, for 1 year of using a computer, 60 MB of files will be collected there (this is very small). It's just not easy already not relevant and don't waste your time.
• Uninstall programs completely (see details above) using the special installation files uninstall.exe. It is not necessary to delete programs together with the folder in the “program files” section, otherwise many other files of this program will remain on the disk.

Conclusion

As you can see for yourself, a lot of unnecessary files, programs and folders have been removed. Now you have a lot of free space on the C drive. I also recommend cleaning your computer so that it does not slow down.

This article will cover three methods disk cleanup.

1 Disk cleanup with software Windows tools.

2 Removing temporary Windows files.

3 Delete temporary files in the browser.

4 Delete personal files and folders.

Cleaning the C drive using Winodows software.

In order to run the cleaner, you must:

v Windows XP(choose one of the ways):

On the menu " Start"select item Execute... In the Open box, enter the command cleanmgr and press the button OK.

On the menu " Start"select items in sequence All Programs, Standard, Utilities, and then - Disk cleanup.

V Windows Explorer or in the tool window " My computer"right-click the disk you want to free up space on, select" Properties", open the tab General and press the button Disk cleanup.

v Windows 7(choose one of the ways):

On the menu " Start"select the search box for folders and files, enter the command cleanmgr and press the button OK

Go to " Start - All Programs - Accessories - System Tools - Disk Cleanup".

Click the " Start"in the search box enter" Disk cleanup", and then select Disk Cleanup from the list of results.

v Windows 8(choose one of the ways):

Click on keyboard shortcut + enter command cleanmgr and press the button OK

Move the cursor to the right edge of the screen to bring up the sidebar and select search. Switch to " Parameters", enter the query“ cleaning”And click on the shortcut" Freeing up disk space by deleting extra files "in the search results.

After analyzing the state of the disk, the utility will display a list of files that can be deleted to free up space. You can indicate with checkboxes what to delete (I recommend leaving everything as default). Click the " Clean up system files».

The program will ask you to confirm the deletion. Click " Delete files".

Removing temporary Windows files.

Temporary files-file, created by a certain program or operating system to save intermediate results during operation or transfer data to another program. Usually, such files are deleted automatically, but quite often they remain in temporary folders from where it is advisable to periodically delete them, since this is not only extra garbage, but also the first home of most viruses.

In order to delete temporary files, go to the appropriate folders:

V Windows XP:
C: \ Documents and Settings \<Ваша учетная запись>\ Local Settings \ Temp Local Settings is a hidden folder, in order to make it visible, use the article How to see hidden folders .
C: \ WINDOWS \ Temp

C: \ Temp
V Windows 7:

C: \ Users \<Ваша учетная запись> How to see hidden folders .

C: \ Windows \ Temp

V Windows 8 / Windows 8.1:

C: \ Users \<Ваша учетная запись>\ App Data \ Local \ Temp App Data, hidden folder, in order to make it visible, use the article How to see hidden folders .

C: \ Windows \ Temp

After you get into these directories (folders), select all the files by pressing the keyboard shortcut + , right-click, select “ Delete". To permanently get rid of these files, right-click on the shortcut " Basket"and select" Empty trash".

So, you are running out of space on system partition and you are outraged by the ugly behavior of Windows? Don't rush to blame operating system, but try to calmly figure out why this is happening.

The lack of space on the system partition is primarily concerned with users who have allocated too little disk space for it. Right out of the box, modern Windows take up much more space than XP. If you skimp on matches, you run the risk of making these 6 mistakes!

Let's take a look at the moments that most affect the disappearance of disk space.

Swap and hibernation files

Not everyone takes into account that the amount of RAM installed in computers is growing, and therefore the size of paging and hibernation files is growing. In standard Windows configuration swap file is 1.5 times the amount of RAM, and hibernation is 0.75. If you have 8GB of RAM, immediately after installing the system, these two files will occupy 18GB.

If you don't use all RAM v daily work, can reduce the size of the paging file. On a stationary PC, hibernation can be turned off and used to sleep.

Installed programs

Many popular programs have grown quite fat in recent years - this also needs to be taken into account (including when determining the size of the system partition).

Remove unused programs (appwiz.cpl) to free up disk space. After deleting unnecessary program it makes sense to delete her data from folders % AppData% and % LocalAppData% ().

When you install programs, they can copy their setup files on the HDD, so that later you can restore the operation of programs or add / remove functionality(and sometimes this copying is done just "just in case"). Unfortunately, there is no supported way to clean up the Installer folder.

If you like to test new programs, you inevitably clog the system, because not always routine removal application cleans up all the "tails". For experimenting with software it is best to use a virtual machine.

Installed updates

As you use the operating system, the free space decreases. When you install updates, the system backs up the files that are replaced so that the update can be uninstalled in the event of a problem. However, modern Windows can delete old copies.

The longer you work in the system, the stronger the cleaning effect.

Temporary files of downloaded updates

The downloaded updates are saved to the Windows \ SoftwareDistribution folder. Its size does not grow uncontrollably, since the system deletes old files as new ones are loaded. If there are no problems, the folder size can reach 700 - 1000MB, and in case of system problems it can be several gigabytes.

To clean up the SoftwareDistribution folder, run a command prompt as administrator and paste the code below into it.

Net stop wuauserv net stop BITS net stop CryptSvc cd% systemroot% ren SoftwareDistribution SoftwareDistribution.old net start wuauserv net start bits net start CryptSvc rd / s / q SoftwareDistribution.old

Recovery points

Identify the folders taking up the most space

Use a program that displays the distribution of files on the disk in graphical form.

Consider NTFS service files

NTFS metadata is rarely a significant waste of space, but it should be taken into account when calculating disk space used. On Windows 8 and newer, the summary report is output by the command

Fsutil volume allocationreport C:

Identify the application clogging up the disk

Sometimes cleaning helps only for a while, after which the place disappears again as a result of the work of some program. Knowing the folder in which the files are accumulated (see above), you can easily calculate the program.

Make sure there are no viruses

If you followed all the recommendations of the article, but could not find the missing gigabytes, general recommendations are unlikely to help you. In this case, be sure to do a thorough scan for viruses using a special method (even if you have installed and regularly updated antivirus software).

If nothing helped you, all that remains is to advise you to ask a question in the OSZone forum. The article is discussed in this thread.

Many users are faced with a situation where the computer starts to slow down unimaginably. In this case, a pop-up message appears about the lack of free space on the C drive. At the same time, the options offered by the OS itself (all sorts of compression-cleaning) do not give anything.

Causes:

• Viruses. In this case, you can advise to thoroughly scan the system. good antivirus... Or a scanner. For example, AVZ, drWeb ​​Cureit.
• Clogging system disk so-called "junk files". The solution is to install a cleaning program. Popular programs- Auslogics Boost Speed, CCleaner.

But much more often the reason for the lack of free space on the system partition is the wrong actions of the user himself. Which ones?

Desktop

Desktop - FOR LABELS ONLY! This slogan is worth carving in marble. Typically, users clog their desktop with a bunch of "heavy files". Movies, music, hundreds of pictures and photos. It is not right! After all, "desktop" is just a special folder on the system drive!

User data should be located in folders on other partitions (local drives). Throwing shortcuts from your favorite folders to your desktop is not difficult at all. The label usually weighs no more than 4 kb.

Download folders

All programs that can download something from the Internet place this "something" in the "My Documents" folder. In both win XP and win 7, this folder is also located on the system drive (usually - drive C). Therefore, you should go into the browser and torrent client settings and specify a folder for downloads on another drive (on drive D, for example).

Games

Lazy and inattentive users do not bother to read information while installing games. And put them by default in "C \ program files \ game_name" (or Program Data). And this is fundamentally wrong! Modern games can weigh more than 10 GB! That's right - to put games in any other section, but not on the C drive! During installation, you can always see the buttons "Browse", "Change", "View", etc. With their help, you can specify any partition or folder as the installation path.

Page file (pagefile.sys)

Contrary to popular belief, moving the paging file does not affect performance in any way. If it is moved to another logical partition SAME hard disk, on which the OS is "installed". The main thing is not to confuse "hard drive" as HDD device, and " local drives"C and D, which are logical partitions of this HDD! In general, paging file optimization is a topic for a separate article.

But such a transfer can save from 1 to 4 GB, depending on the size of the installed RAM. However, it should be borne in mind that some programs will "resent".

Basket size (recycler)

If you look into the properties of the basket (by right-clicking on the "Trash" icon on the desktop), you will see an interesting thing. It turns out that by default Windows OS reserves 10% of free space either of the entire hard drive or of each partition. And honestly thinks these gigabytes are busy. By selecting the "Independent disk configuration" option and setting 2-4%, you can still unload the unfortunate C partition (files weighing several gigabytes are not worth storing in the recycle bin).

System restore points. They are backups

Everything that is written about the basket is also true for backup storage systems. Where are the recovery points. As a rule, it is not possible to restore the system using a point "older than" six months. And the huge default storage size of the system is simply not needed. It should also be reduced to 2-4%.

The article is applicable for OS win XP, Vista, Win 7.

Probably, it is not necessary to say that many users of Windows systems very often notice: the space on the hard drive tends to decrease noticeably. One gigabyte was lost, then two, then even more ... Why is this happening? If there can be enough volume for free. However, the further material offered for acquaintance represents the most basic situations that can be dealt with with several simple methods.

Why is disk space wasted on C: possible causes

In general, it can be very difficult to name any one exact reason for such a phenomenon. It's all about their combination.

As a rule, space on the C drive is wasted (Windows 10 is in use or a system with a lower rank, it does not matter) mainly due to activity system processes the OS itself, as well as when the computer is cluttered by the user.

However, the most common factors causing these situations to occur are:

• too many rollback points;
• constant installation of updates;
• use of additional space for swap and hibernation files;
• the presence of temporary application files;
• leftovers of incorrectly removed programs;
• system disk errors with the appearance of bad sectors;
• exposure to viruses.

Based on the above reasons, when free space on the C drive is lost, you can use standard tools to free it, and use special optimizers or uninstallers. But further emphasis will be made mostly on the tools of the operating system itself.

Recovery points and backups

Creation of restore points, of course, or backups in the background - a useful thing (you never know when it will come in handy to restore Windows after an unexpected failure). However, you understand that all this information is stored in a specially reserved area of ​​the hard drive.

Therefore, if or any other system allows such points or copies to be deleted. This is done through standard menu cleaning the system partition, which can be accessed through the RMB menu on the computer icon with the transition to the tab general settings security. There is a special button here, after clicking on which the items to be cleared will be deleted.

Updates

Constantly installed updates may also be to blame for the loss of free space on the hard disk. Naturally, it is believed that it is not worth turning off their installation, but everything is not so simple here.

As recent events have shown with WannaCry viruses and Petya.A, Microsoft specialists quickly released special service packs that supposedly allow not only neutralizing the threat, but at least preventing it from entering the system.

In addition, some packages for Windows 7 can cause malfunctions in the operating system itself. In this case, it is recommended to remove the updates that cause errors, and then disable their automatic installation. In the best case, you can select the search option and offer download and installation.

Virtual memory

Hard disk space may also be lost due to incorrect configuration of virtual memory, which is the responsibility of the system component pagefile.sys, called the paging file.

To check its size, you need to go to the performance section. Automatic assignment of its size is not always recommended. In principle, if you have 8 GB of RAM or more, the use of virtual memory can be turned off altogether. Believe me, the system performance will not be affected by this (tested on a laptop with Core processor i7-2620M 2.7GHz with 8GB RAM).

Hibernation file

Another reason for wasting space on the C drive is the constant use of hibernation.

This mode works due to system component hiberfil.sys and saves data running programs and their applied in this moment settings, again, reserving the disk space of the system partition and RAM. By and large, for such situations it is better to use sleep mode rather than hibernation, thereby deleting such a huge file.

For this in command console you need to write the line powercfg / h off. By the way, after using such a command, the link to the hibernation mode disappears even in the main menu of the start button. In principle, this mode is not recommended at all on computers with small disks.

Temporary program files

There is only one problem that is causing the space on the C drive to be wasted - the temporary application files that have not been deleted. In this case it comes not only about web browsers, in which it is necessary to clear both the cache and cookies, and the history of visits, and delete all other temporary components, for example, in the form of saved thumbnails of images.

One of the most common situations is the installation of an application directly from the archiver window without first unpacking it to the hard drive. At the same time, after closing the archiver, you can immediately notice that, most likely, it independently unpacked everything that was inside the archive, which is comparable in size to the total size of the data located there.

Another problem of wasting space on drive C is Photoshop program or any other graphic or video editor. Such utilities create their own swap file, completely ignoring the basic system settings. As a result, the user gets an object of a rather impressive size, which can be several times larger than the pagefile.

Lost space on drive C: leftovers from deleted applications

Another problem is that Windows' own uninstaller does not perform well when uninstalling programs. This concerns the fact that it does not always delete absolutely everything that was associated with the program. And if earlier, it was proposed to delete some elements on your own, now the system simply reports that residual components will be removed on next reboot.

But nothing of the kind is happening. Files and folders remain, as well as keys system registry(and the OS boot speed depends on its size). In this case optimal solution will use special utilities, which provide for in-depth scanning of residual elements ( Revo Uninstaller, iObit Uninstaller and others like them).

Bad sectors

Unfortunately, the appearance of errors in the system partition, after which the free space on the hard disk decreases, is also no exception. The trouble is that bad sectors can sometimes be completely unreadable or unrecognized.

Thus, the system simply ignores them. Alternatively, you can run a hard drive check, but it is advisable to do this not using a standard tool, but from command line by writing chkdsk c: / x / f / r or some variation in it. This technique works both in the current system and when booting from removable media.

If the hard drive is physically damaged, there is nothing you can do about it, although it is considered to be the most extreme and last resort disk recovery can be a program that (according to its creators) can remagnetize a hard disk, which, however, raises serious doubts.

Viruses

Finally, even many viruses are capable of attacking disk space. This is most often associated with adware, spyware, or spam threats. The problem here is that most of these hijackers are able to integrate into the operating system and all browsers, after which a huge amount of computer garbage is left on the disk both in the form of temporary files and in the form of their own elements.

To deal with such things is best disk programs(Rescue Disk), which can start even before the OS boots and detect even deeply hidden or integrated threats.

Instead of an afterword

As you can see, there can be a lot of reasons, as well as ways to eliminate the consequences. And so it is absolutely impossible to immediately determine what was the root cause of the reduction in free space. Therefore, you will have to act, to put it mildly, at random, figuring out what this situation may be connected with initially.

But don't despair. At least one of the suggested techniques will work. True, the actions will have to be carried out according to the above list and in the sequence in which they were described.

As a definite conclusion, it can be noted that most of the loss of space on the hard drive is associated with the functioning of system processes and programs, as well as the incorrect removal of the application, after which a heap of computer garbage remains in the system, which can be very problematic to get rid of. However, you can also use optimizer programs, although no one can give a complete guarantee of deleting residual files and folders here. The visibility of cleaning is there, but does it all look so good in reality?

Naturally, it cannot be ruled out, but they do not always occur, and the appearance of errors on the hard disk can only be associated with short-term failures, for example, with a sudden power outage or forced reboot when it hangs (especially during the installation of service packs).