In this article I will tell you how to quickly estimate the volume occupied by folders on your hard disk and how to correctly free up free disk space from temporary and unnecessary files and programs. In addition, I will tell you why you should not delete the folder. winsys what the files are for hiberfil.sys and pagefile.sys, as well as what tools exist to quickly free up disk space on a computer running Windows 7. As an example, cleaning the system drive C is shown.
Estimating the space occupied by folders on disk
The fastest and most visually convenient way to find out the size of folders on disk is to install a special program. I recommend downloading a free program for estimating the used disk space TreeSize Free(products webpage).
Disk cleaning of temporary and unused files using the standard Windows 7 "Disk Cleanup" tool
Removing unnecessary programs from disk
A good way to free up disk space (and as an added bonus to increase system performance) is to uninstall unused programs.
Go to Control Panel and select "Uninstall Programs". A list will appear in which you can select the program you want to uninstall and click "Uninstall".
Disk Cleanup with CCleaner
I've talked about this free program before. In it, among other things, there is the ability to clean the disk from unnecessary files. Unlike the standard "Disk Cleanup" utility mentioned above, CCleaner not only deletes temporary browser files, but also knows about alternative programs and browsers.
A few words about the files pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys
The files are located at the root of the system drive and take up quite a lot of space.
- File pagefile.sys is the system paging file (virtual memory). You cannot delete it (it is also not recommended to reduce it), but you can and even need to move it to another disk. This is done very simply, open "Control Panel \ System and Security \ System", select "Advanced system settings" in the "Performance" section, click "Settings", switch to the "Advanced" tab and in the "Virtual memory" section, click "Change" ... There you can select the location of the paging file and its size (I recommend leaving the "Size as selected by the system").
- File hiberfil.sys is a ram image for sleep mode (hypernation mode). How to disable this mode and delete the file is described in detail in the corresponding article on our website:
Hard drives are getting bigger and bigger, but somehow they always fill up. This is especially noticeable if you are using a solid state drive (SSD), which offers much less hard drive space than traditional mechanical hard drives.
Empty trash
Figure # 1. Empty trash.When you delete items such as files and photos from your computer, they are not immediately deleted. Instead, they fit into the recycle bin and continue to take up valuable hard drive space. To empty the Trash, go to your desktop, right-click on the Trash and select Empty Trash. A warning pop-up will appear if you are sure you want to permanently delete the contents of the recycle bin. Click "Yes" to continue.
Disk cleanup
Windows has a built-in Disk Cleanup utility (aptly called Disk Cleanup) that can help you clean up space by deleting various files, including temporary internet files, system error dump files, and even previous Windows installations that may still be on your disk.
Figure 2. Disk cleanup. You can find Disk Cleanup in the Start menu under All Apps> Accessories> System Tools> Disk Cleanup. Select the drive you want to clean up, click OK.
Click the Disk Cleanup button in the disk properties window.
Fig. 3.0. Disk cleanup. After clicking on the "Clean Up Disk" button, the Disk Cleanup program calculates how much space you can free up. This process can last from a few seconds to several minutes. In general, the more cluttered the hard drive is, the longer it takes to scan.
Fig. 3.1. Place assessment. Select the file types you want to delete and click OK. This includes temporary files, log files, files in the trash can, and other unimportant files. When you're ready, click OK to uninstall. Make sure you check the boxes for each of the file categories you want to clean up. Confirm that you want to delete these files.
You can also clean up system files that are not listed here. Click clean up system files button if you also want to delete system files.
Figure 4. Clean up system files. Wait for Disk Cleanup to calculate how much space you can free up. This process can last from a few seconds to several minutes. In general, the more cluttered the hard drive is, the longer it takes to scan.
Figure 5. Place assessment. After that, you will have a tab "Advanced" in which you can clear "System Restore and Shadow Copy" to delete the system data recovery. This button removes everything except the most recent restore point, so make sure your computer is working properly before using it - you won't be able to use old system restore points.
Fig. 6. Free up additional disk space. You can also clean "Programs and Features" by clicking on the top button "Clean" shown in Figure 6, or go to the following path "Start"> "Control Panel"> "Programs and Features" or "Uninstall Programs".
The next window will open in which you can remove all unused or unnecessary programs.
Figure 7. Removing programs. Wait while the list of all programs installed on your computer is updated. Look at programs that take up a lot of space and are not used at all. Select the program and click the Uninstall button.
Expand drive "C" with drive "D" without third-party software.
This method is suitable only if you do not have important data on disk "d" and you can format it all. Open Windows Disk Management. Press the key combination "Win + R" on the keyboard, we will see the "Run" window, drive in the command "diskmgmt.msc" and press the Enter key.
In the window that opens, rip out the disk on which there is no necessary information and by clicking the right mouse button, the properties window will open where you need to select "Delete volume".
After that, there will be free space in which you need to delete partitions in order to expand disk "C", right-click on the free space and select "Delete partitions".
The Expand Volume Wizard will open and will allow you to expand the size of simple or spanned volumes. Click the Next button. In the next window, you need to select the size by which you can increase the drive "C". Then we press the button "next" and "ready". And we see that there is more space on the C drive.
Next, you need to create a new disk D. Right-click on "Not allocated", select "create a new volume ..."> "Next", select the size of the disk "D"> "Next"> Select a drive letter, "Next"> "Next ">" Ready. "
Video how to increase the C drive
Good day, dear readers, admirers and other personalities. Ever notice that space on your computer is wasted?
As a rule, this is not a consequence of a virus or your carelessness, but simply the Windows System Restore service, an incorrectly configured paging file, and others. Often, the reason for selling space is also the high value of the browser cache or the OS cluttered with all kinds of software garbage.
How to find out the reason for disappearing space in Windows
As I said, there are several sources where space can be lost.
Let's take a look at them in order.
First, the recovery system. The fact is that Microsoft, having taken care of its users, made a recovery system in Windows, which greatly affects the fact that your space is lost (although in reality it is simply "hidden").
It is engaged in the fact (if you have not changed the settings) that with some frequency (especially in the case of installing programs \ games \) it makes restore points, which you can always use in the event of a system crash / failure. The question is, do you use this recovery system?
For example, I can hardly remember the last time I had to do this. Moreover, the benefits of this are highly questionable. In turn, these points take up to 12% of the space on each hard disk, which, you see, is a lot (especially on large disks). Therefore, here's how to get rid (or at least reconfigure) the amount of space occupied by recovery points.
How to reclaim disk space on your computer
Start -> Settings -> Control Panel-> System -> System Restore
For Windows Vista / Windows 7/8/10:
Start -> Settings -> Control Panel-> System -> System Protection
Here you can either completely disable system restore, or distribute on which disks and how much space the points will take.
I cannot recommend that you completely disable recovery, because I don’t know how often you encounter system problems and resort to recovery, but for me personally it is disabled, tk. I consider it a dubious tool that takes up quite a lot of space, especially since you can always use the "" article to protect and restore data.
For those who want to leave it (system restore), but configure it as competently as possible and make it so that it was no longer necessary to look for where the space was lost:
- It is desirable that the disk with the operating system does not have them at all or they take up as little space as possible;
- You don't need more than 3 restore points i.e. it is not necessary to set the maximum percentage even on several disks. It will be enough 3-6% on one or two disks and then, in my opinion, this will be a lot.
By the way, before setting these parameters, the system had already created a number of restore points, so it would be nice to delete them. To do this, open "My Computer", right-click on the hard disk space on which you need to clear and select "Properties" from the drop-down list.
In the window that appears, click on the button "Disk Cleanup" - "Advanced" - " System Restore"-" Clear "-" Yes "-" Ok ".
Or, if you have Windows 7 / Vista, you can clear the space occupied by restore points using the " Configure - Delete", which is located on the" System Protection "tab (see the path above):
This is, as they say, time.
Let's go to point two.
About the swap file and where space is lost
When the operating system does not have enough, it starts to unload programs into the paging file, i.e. a file on your hard disk that serves as a kind of random access memory, but much slower in speed. Accordingly, the size of the paging file can be different, depending on the amount of your RAM.
By default, the size of the paging file is 2-4 times the size of physical RAM, but this size can be changed, however, often at the expense of performance (especially if there is not enough RAM). He also answers the question where the place disappears, because he takes this very place and takes all his strength.
Configure the location and size of the paging file on hard drives here:
- Start -> Settings -> Control Panel-> System -> Advanced> Performance> Options> Advanced> Virtual Memory -> Change
I still do not recommend disabling the swap file entirely, but redistributing or reducing it is always welcome. I wrote in more detail about the swap file and its configuration in the article, and therefore check it out to set the correct numbers.
Cash, trash and where the place goes
During the operation of the system, programs, browsers and other differences constantly create a so-called cache, that is, temporary auxiliary files that (files) they periodically forget to delete after themselves. Also, after removing various programs, they usually leave traces of trash from the files, which, at times, also weigh quite a lot.
Therefore, I recommend that you constantly clean Tempory Internet Files, browser cache, program traces and other all sorts of garbage. I wrote how to do this in the article "". I highly recommend reading it, because it often frees up a lot of space.
Other manual cleaning
First, turn on the display of hidden files. To do this, follow the path “ My Computer - Tools - Folder Options - View - Show Hidden Files and Folders - OK ".
Next, open the disk with the system and find the Documents and Settings folder there. It contains your profile files and some system / program settings. The thing is that most programs, especially if you uninstalled them incorrectly, i.e. without use, for example, they leave behind a bunch of traces and debris that sometimes even Ccleaner does not clean up. You have to dig with your hands. According to my estimates, the most cluttered folders are:
- C: \ Documents and Settings \ name \ Application Data;
- C: \ Documents and Settings \ name \ Local Settings \ Application Data.
where C: \ is the drive where the system is located, and name is your name in the system.
Dig carefully through these folders and delete the folders with the names of programs that have not been on your computer for a long time.
You can find the rest of the thick folders yourself by selecting one \ group of folders in Documents and Settings and checking their volume by pressing the right mouse button and selecting the “Properties” item from the list. As a rule, traveling like this, you can find a lot of all sorts of junk that was forgotten (or deliberately left behind) by the uninstaller programs.
In general, to make it clearer what exactly takes up how much space on which disk and how to delete it, I recommend reading this article of mine: "", the program in which will clearly allow you to reveal what is eating away the cherished megabytes from the disk.
Afterword
Something like this.
I hope you found this article helpful and that you cleaned up and saved heaps of valuable megabytes.
As always, I will be glad for your additions, reviews, questions, etc., which you can safely write in the comments to this post.
PS: As a good alternative to the aforementioned Ccleaner, I can suggest you to use - a wonderful program for cleaning garbage and all sorts of "forgotten" difference.
No matter how large the C: drive you installed, no matter how regularly you clean your computer from garbage, sooner or later you will surely come across this annoying window at the bottom right: "There is not enough space on the C drive ...". The reasons for this error in Windows 7 and how to increase free space on the system disk will be discussed below.
Causes
So, there are several factors that affect the amount of free space on system drive C... The most obvious one is. However, much more space on the system partition is "eaten up" Windows applications and services that you don't even know about. This is the browser cache, and memory dump files, hibernation, and so on, and so on, and so on. No matter how often you do the standard procedure disk cleanup, all the same it will constantly "clog up". Below we will try to give an exhaustive number of solutions that can significantly free up disk space.
First, let's start with the most obvious solution to the problem, the standard disk cleanup procedure. To run the utility, open Computer, right click on drive C, select Properties -> Disk Cleanup.
Wait while the program calculates the possible amount of free space. In the window that opens, put a check mark on absolutely all items. The bottom right will display amount of free space... However, the indicated number will not always correspond to the actual amount of free space on the disk. This is because some programs are still using temporary files in the background and they cannot be deleted at the moment.
Click "OK" and in a moment your system disk will be replenished with some amount of free space. If you are not satisfied with the result, proceed to the next step.
Clearing user files
User files- files and folders with files that you created on the system disk. What are the possible places for "garbage accumulation" on the C: drive? First of all, it is Desktop.
To find out how much space files take up on your desktop, open Computer and go to Drive C -> Users -> [Username] and find the folder Desktop... Call its properties and see the amount of memory it occupies. Ideally, the number should be in kilobytes, not megabytes or, God forbid, gigabytes. Try to keep LABELS ONLY the programs you need. Move music, movies and other rubbish to other local drives.
The next "garbage dump" is folders "Video", "Documentation", "Images" and "Music" In chapter "Libraries" the Computer window (in the left pane). Check the contents of these directories carefully and, if necessary, move files to other drives... Storing information in these places, moreover, can significantly slow down the system due to fragmentation files.
So, why stop there, let's make space further.
Cleaning up temporary files
Much more space on the system partition is taken up by files that you don't even know about. This temporary files created by almost all running applications. Programs for working with large amounts of data- video, audio, all kinds of archivers, etc. Take, for example, the same WinRar which, when opened, unpacks the archives into temporary directories on the C: drive.
So, there are two main folders for temporary files. They are located at the following addresses:
C: \ Windows \ Temp
C: \ Users \ [username] \ AppData \ Local \ Temp \
All you need to do is empty these folders. The content of the former can be deleted in the usual way with Computer... The second directory is usually hidden from the user, so you can get to it by manually entering the path in the address bar of Explorer, or by installing the program Total commander and enabling the display of hidden / system files ( Configuration -> Setting -> Panel Content -> Show Hidden / System Files ). After deleting files, don't forget Empty trash.
These are the basic, most obvious ways to clean up your disk. Now let's talk about additional measures that are not necessary to apply, but with their help you can replenish free space with gigabytes.
Disable Windows update
The purpose was always incomprehensible to me Windows updates... Huge amounts of data that are often of no practical use. By default, the computer is enabled Automatic update... This means that almost every day the amount of free space is reduced by 200-300 MB.
In the key of our problem, we, of course, will not remove the already installed updates, but we will release a couple of gigabytes downloaded to the computer, but not yet installed. But first, we need to turn off the automatic update feature. To do this, we call Computer Properties(right-click on the Computer icon on the Desktop and select the appropriate item). In the Properties window, go to Windows Update -> Configure Settings... In the drop-down list, select "Do not check for updates".
Disable hibernation and delete the hiberfil.sys file
Hibernation- this is the so-called Hibernation, - a state when the contents of the RAM are written to a file hiberfil.sys on the system drive, and the computer itself shuts down completely. After turning on, the reverse process takes place and the Computer starts, keeping open all applications that were launched.
Depending on the amount of RAM, the hiberfil.sys file can have a different size, ranging from 1 to 4 GB. You can sacrifice the Hibernation feature, but you can save a lot of disk space.
To disable Hibernation and delete the hiberfil.sys file, follow these steps:
- Go to Control panel -> Power supply -> Setting the transition to sleep mode;
- In the dropdown list « Putting your computer to sleep " choose « Never" and save your changes;
- Open Start, write a word "Cmd" and in the search results run Command line on behalf of the Administrator (right-click on the icon "Cmd" and choose "Run as Administrator")
- In the window enter the command powercfg -h off and press ENTER.
After rebooting, the free space on the C: drive will obviously increase.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I would like to add that a fairly effective way to clean up free space on the C: drive is clearing your browser cache... You can find out how to do this on the network, but keep in mind that after a while this garbage will reappear on the disk, so do not forget to clean it up periodically.
Try to maintain order on your Computer and then you will always know what, where and how much disk space you have. As usual, we hope you found this helpful. We write comments, put likes, repost in social. networks and share with friends!
In this article, we will look at how to clean the C: \ drive in the Windows 7 operating system and increase the amount of free space on it for the normal functioning of the system.
The article will be divided into two parts: the first for beginners and the second for more advanced users.
So let's go.
I am engaged in the repair of computer equipment. And quite often they bring a computer with the problem "Not enough space on the system disk". Due to the congestion of the system disk, such problems arise: some programs do not start, video does not load in the browser, general system slowdown, etc. This is due to the fact that many programs need space for storing temporary files, but there is simply no space on the disk ... If you begin to receive a message that there is not enough space on the system disk, and your hand began to control the mouse in search of a shortcut to CCleaner or a similar program, then raise your second hand higher and hit yourself on the first. I categorically do not recommend using such programs, since more than once I had to restore the operating system after the actions of this program.
Let's take a look at other ways in which we can free up free space on the system drive.
The first step is to transfer data (photos, videos, music, etc.) to the second disk. Since the "Desktop" and the "My Documents" folders are physically located on the system drive (I will continue to write the C: \ drive, since basically everyone has the "C: \" drive on the system drive), therefore, to free up space, you need to transfer user data to the second section. In order to make it easier to copy data from the desktop, go along the path C: \ Users \% Username% \ Desktop, select the "Table" view, filter by type. Next, press Ctrl + X or the right mouse button "Cut", then go to the second disk, create a folder and paste all the data Ctrl + V into it. Next, go to My Documents and in the same way we transfer everything from the folders "My Pictures", "My Videos", "My Music". Do not forget to look into the "Downloads" or "Downloads" folders, from there we either move everything to the second disk, or, if the downloaded files are unnecessary, we just delete them (To completely remove them from the computer, select and press the key combination Shift + DEL if you just press DEL, then the files will be deleted to the trash can, and it is also located on the C: \ drive). Also, in the "My Documents" folder, you can find many folders with the names of games - you can leave them alone, they often store game saves and they do not take up much space. Next, go to the "Cart" and click the "Empty cart" button.
Second action - delete temporary files. In the process of running applications, they create temporary files necessary for normal operation. These files are created in the folder TEMP, which is located on the path C: \ Windows \ Temp and should be automatically deleted when the application ends, but this does not always happen. Therefore, we go to the folder TEMP highlight all (Ctrl + A) and click Shift + DEL... If some files are necessary for the application to work at this very moment, then Windows will not allow them to be deleted. Can also be cleaned TEMP via function Disk Cleanup, but more on that later.
Third step - clearing the browser cache. In each browser, the cache is cleared from different menu items, how to clear the cache of your particular browser, you can find using Google. Most importantly, when cleaning Don't forget to uncheck the saved form data from the cache, cookies, saved passwords, etc. Otherwise, after clearing the cache, you will have to re-enter all passwords on the sites.
Step four - "Disk Cleanup". To use the Disk Cleanup feature in Windows 7, go to My Computer, right-click on the desired drive, select the Properties menu item and click the Disk Cleanup button. We will see the following window.
Upon completion of the evaluation of free space, a window will appear where you can check the boxes necessary for deleting the items. Then click "OK" and click the "Delete files" button. We are waiting for the deletion and that's it.
The fifth action is to remove unnecessary programs. We go to "Start "-" Control Panel "-" Programs "-" Remove Programs ". The list of installed programs will be loaded. You can filter them by size and remove those that you do not use (modern games are especially large).
Important: If you do not know the purpose of any programs, then it is better not to touch them or use them before uninstalling.Google in order to understand what kind of program it is and whether it can be removed!
Act six- clean the temporary folder Temp v ApplicationData... The AppData folder is hidden by default. In order to see hidden folders go to "Start "-" Control Panel "-" Small icons "view -" Folder options "- the" View "tab - and put a marker next to the inscription" Show hidden files, folders and drives ".
After we go along the path C: \ Users \% Username% \ AppData \ Local \ Temp. Here we select all files and folders and then click Shift + Del... The data that is currently being used cannot be deleted, so just click the "Skip" button.
These were ways to clean up the disk for novice users in the continuation of the article, we will consider ways to free up free space for more advanced users, although they are not very complicated.
The second part will consist in disabling not all the necessary functions of the Windows 7 operating system, as well as in reconfiguring some parameters.
The first point is to disable hibernation.
Hibernation is a computer operating system mode, saving the contents of RAM to a non-volatile storage device before shutting down. That is, in fact, this is a mode in which everything that was launched on the computer from RAM is reloaded onto the HDD and after exiting hibernation we get running programs and a working operating system. To implement this function, the operating system reserves on the hard disk a volume approximately equal to the amount of RAM. Personally, I never liked this mode because the exit from it was previously accompanied by malfunctions in the operating system, so I advise you to disable it (especially if you have a lot of RAM and little space on the C: \ drive). To disable hibernation, click Start - Run and write the cmd command (the command line will start). On the command line, write powercfg.exe / hibernate off... After restarting your computer, you will see the free space on the system drive.
Or you can go to "Start" - "Control Panel" - "Power supply" - "Setting up a power plan" - "Change power settings" - find the item "Sleep", open it, the item "Hibernation after" enter the value "0".
The second point is to move or disable the paging file.
The paging file is a special space on the disk that is reserved by the system and, in case of insufficient RAM, is used to store temporary data. The space for the paging file is located on the C: \ drive and, if necessary, can be moved to the second drive. If you have a large amount of RAM (from 6 GB), then the paging file can be disabled altogether. To transfer or disable the paging file, right-click on "My Computer" - "Properties" - "Advanced system settings" - "Advanced" tab - "Performance" section - "Settings" button.
Here you can change the location of the swap file, or specify the size of the swap file "0" and put the marker "without swap file" to disable it.
The third point - we transfer the Temp folder.
In order to prevent the temporary folder from growing on the system disk again, it can be moved to the second disk.
The fourth point is to delete restore points.
In order to remove all restore points, go to "Start" - "Control Panel" - "System" - click "System Protection".
Press the button "Configure".
In the window that opens, click the "Delete" button opposite the inscription "Delete all restore points, including system settings and previous versions of files."
To delete all restore points except the last one, go to "Disk Cleanup" as in the first part of the article, go to the "Advanced" tab. Next to the inscription "System Restore and Shadow Copying", press the "Clear" button and in the window that appears, press the "Delete" button.
I also recommend checking for old copies of Windows 7. Starting with Windows Vista, it became possible to install a new operating system on the same partition with the old one. As a result, after installing new operating systems on the C: \ drive, folders appear in the root directory Windows.old... We go into this folder (or if you have several of them, then in each turn), transfer important information from “Documents and Settings” and from “Desktop”, and then delete the entire folder.
It seems that these are all the main ways to clean up the C: \ drive. After completing all the steps, I was able to free up to half of the capacity on the system disk. If you have any other ways - write in the comments.
Thank you all for your attention, good luck setting up your computers.
