Freeing up disk space in Windows 7. How to clean your hard drive of unnecessary files in Windows operating systems

Any operating system, during its operation, saves some temporary files in a specially designated area of ​​disk space. Thus, a fairly substantial amount of information, especially unnecessary information, gradually accumulates. This is why it is important to periodically clean the C drive. There are 10 ways to free up space on the C drive that will seem simple even to a beginner.

Navigator by methods

1 way. Using the Windows utility.

10 ways to clean up a disk include the main and not the most effective way to clear the system disk of files that are not needed. It's built-in Windows utility. Thanks to it, you can delete data that does not affect the operation and is unnecessary for the system, and it only takes a couple of minutes. To do this, you need to launch the tool by opening the “My Computer” window and selecting the properties of drive C. In the menu that appears, select the “General” tab, which most often opens by default. Next you will have to click on the clear button. After a certain period of time, the utility can display a list of temporary files, information about the operation of the operating system, and even data located in the Recycle Bin.

3 way. Empty the trash can.

It is important to remember that all deleted files are most often sent to the Recycle Bin. A folder called "Trash" acts as temporary storage for everything that is deleted. In reality, this folder takes up a lot of space on your PC. In order to finally get rid of data from the recycle bin, you should right-click on it, and then select the appropriate “Empty Recycle Bin” item.

4 way. Clear folders Temp.

Windows has 2 Temp folders where various temporary files are stored. For example, files that are necessary when installing drivers, programs, updating antivirus or Windows. After these files become useless, you can simply delete them, thereby freeing up some space on the C drive. To do this, you will have to open “Computer – drive C – Windows folder", find the Temp folder there and delete all contents.

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5 way. Restore the system.

Another way to free up space on the C drive is to delete recovery checkpoints. They also take up a certain number of megabytes. To see them, go to “Start – All Programs – Accessories – System Tools – System Restore”.

6 way. Clean your desktop.

If you want to clean up drive C, the first thing you need to do is clean your desktop. All files that are on the computer desktop are physically located on the “C” drive. In this regard, moving files from your desktop to another drive, for example, drive D, will instantly help free up a large amount of occupied system space.

7 way. Use CCleaner.

An excellent program called CCleaner can help clean up drive C. It is the most popular utility among garbage cleaners.

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8 way. Remove duplicates.

Duplicate files are a more serious problem. And almost everyone has it. In fact, the same folders with photos, music and videos are always on the disk. They are real disk space eaters. You can find them without using special program, especially if you have a good memory. If your memory is bad, you can use special software, for example, the Duplicate Killer program.

9 way. Remove unused programs.

Removing unused programs will help free up space on the C drive the fastest, but some programs take up very little space and deleting them will hardly change the overall picture. Therefore, in the Programs and Features section, programs can be sorted by size. To do this, press Win+X and select “Programs and Features.” You should click on the name of the “Size” field with the mouse so that the applications are sorted by size. Next, you can select the necessary programs and click the “Delete” button.

10th way. Disable sleep mode.

When the computer is in sleep mode, the system saves the contents RAM on your hard drive. This allows the user, during the process of waking up the computer, to continue using it from where they left off. Windows stores the contents of RAM in the Hiberfil.sys file on drive C. To save space on your hard drive, you should disable sleep mode and delete the Hiberfil.sys file.

In the life of every user, sooner or later there comes a moment when ends free space on drive C and a similar message pops up. At the same time, the computer begins to slow down terribly, many programs do not work correctly or do not work at all. It is advisable to avoid such a situation, but if it has befallen you, in this article I will tell you how to deal with it - Free up space on your system drive without damaging the system.

1. Windows temporary files

The first thing to do in such cases is to remove temporary Windows files. To do this, you need to delete all the contents of the folders:

\Temp
\WINDOWS\TEMP

for Windows XP:
\Documents and Settings\<имя_пользователя>\Local Settings\Temp
\Documents and Settings\<имя_пользователя>\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files
\Documents and Settings\<имя_пользователя>\Local Settings\History

for Windows 7, Vista:
\Users\<имя_пользователя>\AppData\Local\Temp
\Users\<имя_пользователя>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files
\Users\<имя_пользователя>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\History

In all “beast builds” of Windows, the location of the temporary folder may differ. To find the temporary folder, follow these steps:

Start -> Run(for Windows XP)
Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Run(for Windows 7, Vista)
In the Run window, in the Open field, enter the following text: %TEMP%
Click on the button "OK«.

It is best to delete files using file manager, such as Total Commander because: a) folder Local Settings usually hidden and the user may simply not find it; b) in a folder Temp There are several files that cannot be deleted because they are currently in use by the system. For Windows Explorer this becomes an insurmountable task and he cannot completely clean the folder:

For Total Commander both of these issues do not pose problems.

2. Windows update files

After operating system updates in the folder \WINDOWS\ There are still many folders whose names begin with “$...” You can also delete them all:

3. Browser cache

Opera Internet browsers, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer(especially version 6) sometimes leave behind a huge amount of garbage on the system disk, which is also useful to clean sometimes. This is done like this:

for Mozilla Firefox: Tools -> Erase Recent History. Select item "All", press "OK":

for Opera: Settings -> Delete personal data. You can expand the list " Detailed setting ", press " Delete«:

for Chrome: Chrome menu (toolbar) -> Tools -> Clear browsing data. Select the item " for all time", press the button "Clear history":

for Internet Explorer: Service -> Delete browsing history, or Service -> Internet Options -> General -> Browsing history -> "Delete" button...

In this way, you can clear drive C of several gigabytes of garbage, which consists mainly of many thousands of small (up to 10 kb) files, which can significantly slow down the operation of browsers and the computer as a whole.

4. Downloading browsers, torrent clients, DC, MediaGet, DownloadMaster, etc.

By default, all program data loads files onto the “C” drive, which very quickly leads to its clogging. To prevent this, it is necessary to configure the paths for saving files from the Internet “not on drive C” in each such program.

for Mozilla Firefox: Tools -> Settings -> General -> Path to save files:

for Opera: Settings -> Advanced -> Downloads - > Save downloaded files to:

for Chrome: Chrome menu (toolbar) -> Settings -> Advanced settings:

for uTorrent: Settings -> Program settings -> Folders

For other programs that download anything from the Internet or local network The setting principle is the same.

5. Mail program databases (TheBat, Mozilla Thunderbird, Microsoft Office Outlook, etc.)

With intensive exchange of information using email programs, the size of their databases can grow to incredible sizes over time. It is advisable to take this point into account at the stage of installing and configuring these programs, but if you haven’t done this, it doesn’t matter, you can still fix it.

for TheBat: Box -> Properties mailbox-> Files and directories:

For Microsoft Office Outlook: Service -> Accounts email-> View or change existing accounts-> Create Outlook data file:

You can check whether everything is correct and at the same time delete an unnecessary file from drive “C” here: Tools -> Options -> Mail settings-> Data files:

For other email programs, everything is configured according to the same principles.

7. Temporary program files

Programs that work with large amounts of data, such as disc burning programs (e.g. Nero Burning ROM), video (e.g. Pinnacle Studio), audio editors, image processing programs (e.g. Adobe Photoshop) in the process of their work create large temporary files (the so-called “cache”) and, if there is not enough free space to create them, they refuse to work normally, and various failures occur. To prevent this, you need to promptly transfer their temporary files to another disk:

Nero Burning ROM: File -> Presets -> Cache:

Pinnacle Studio: Settings -> Project Options:

Adobe Photoshop: Editing-> Settings -> Performance:

8. Games

From the very beginning of using a computer, you should make it a rule: “If possible, do not install games on drive “C”! Moreover, modern games take up several DVDs, and after installation they can take up several tens of gigabytes. After installing several of these games, you will run out of free space on any disk, no matter how large it is:

9. My Documents and Desktop

This problem dates back to the dinosaur days of the very first versions of Windows. 8 generations of the operating system have already changed, and user folders are still located on the system drive. Moreover, it has worsened: starting from Windows Vista added to them additional folders, such as “Drawings”, “Videos”, “Music”, “Downloads”, “Games”, “Contacts”, “Searches”, “Links”...

Any standard procedure for transferring all user folders to another local disk is also not provided. There are only a few possibilities, for example, in Windows XP you can move the “My Documents” folder:

Quite experienced and novice PC users have a bad habit of saving the necessary and most needed files on the desktop. A dozen or two gigabytes of information on your desktop is, unfortunately, not at all uncommon! What can you recommend? There is only one thing - to completely refuse to use these “wonderful opportunities” and important information keep NOT on drive C. Moreover, the probability of losing information stored on drive “C” is much higher than on any other logical drive.

10.Programs

Browse the list installed programs and remove those that you will no longer use, especially large ones:

11. Sleep mode

If all else fails, disabling the use of sleep mode will save from 1 to 5 additional gigabytes.

for Windows XP: Start-> Control Panel -> Appearance and Themes -> Screen -> Screensaver -> Power -> Sleep Mode. Uncheck " Allow use of sleep mode»

for Windows 7, Vista: Start -> Control Panel -> Power supply -> Setting up a power plan -> Put your computer into sleep mode -> « Never". You can also disable the sleep function. Select "Change advanced power settings" and in the window, find sleep mode and turn it off. After disabling “Hibernation Mode,” you can delete the hidden hiberfil.sys file in the root directory of the system disk. It’s a little easier to do this with help: just enter the command “ powercfg -hibernate -off«.

12. Other

Large files can appear in any other place on the system disk, where you wouldn’t expect to see it:

• log files of some programs can grow to many tens of gigabytes;
• one of the users may safely hide and forget the “collection of videos”. Where is the best place to do this? Of course, somewhere in the wilds of system folders on drive “C”;
• some program or plugin for Photoshop stores its database (10-100 GB in size) in a user folder;

In such cases, it is necessary to check the size of all folders (including hidden and system) and find the “culprit” by eliminating. Using the Total Commander program, this is again easier to do: just press the Ctrl+Alt+Enter key combination in an open folder and the size of all attached files and folders will appear in the palm of your hand:

Another case: a folder for temporary files Avira antivirus has grown to an incredible 16 GB:

13. Basket

Emptying the Recycle Bin is a fairly obvious way to further clean up disks that are already deleted files, but sometimes quite a large number of files accumulate there, which also negatively affects the performance of the computer.

13. Cleaner programs

There are a huge number of programs that promise, with the click of one or maximum two buttons, to solve all the user’s problems with computer performance and raise it to unprecedented heights. As practice and common sense show, these programs can only solve some (or rather only 1, 2 and 3, and some other little things) from the problems described above, which in this particular case may well not be the most important problem. Although automating this process saves time: it is much faster to automatically delete temporary files than to clean them out manually. Standard program disk cleanup ( Start -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Disk Cleanup) is slightly worse than alternatives (eg CCleaner).

14. What else do they write about on the “Internet”

On “our Internets” there are also many fables, myths, unverified facts and outright misinformation. These, from my point of view, include:

• deleting, resizing, moving the swap file;
• deleting backups system files, drivers;
• removal or modification of operating system components;
• removing duplicate operating system files;
• formatting drive C.

It is not advisable to touch operating system components without a clear understanding of what exactly you are doing and why.

15. Summary

Long gone are the days when you could put Windows, a bunch of programs and a lot of data into a 1 GB hard drive and still manage to work and play games. Memory capacity for hard drives The average user has already crossed the several terabyte mark, but the problems remain the same. Well, artificial intelligence experience and common sense will not soon replace it. Keep an eye on the free space - for comfortable operation of the operating system there should be at least no less than 1/3 of the disk capacity, or no less (or preferably more) several gigabytes. The final step of this work, to achieve an even better result, is to carry out.

Recently I came across a survey “how much space do you have on drive C”, this prompted me to show you how to clear drive C from unnecessary files without removing anything unnecessary.

As the survey showed, most people have only 100 GB allocated to drive C, of ​​which a couple of GB are free. This is not surprising, the OS and necessary software occupy 50 GB, plus garbage, temporary files and as a result the memory is all occupied. Let's get started and remove all the junk from the computer one by one.

Cleaning downloads

I think everyone knows what this folder is and why it is 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 in the left menu there will be “Downloads”.

If for some reason this folder is not in the left menu, then go to: Drive C, Users, “User name of your PC”, Downloads.

Now, as you understand, I suggest deleting everything from this folder except what you need. It is better to move the remaining files that will be useful to you to another drive.

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

Move the downloads folder to drive D, E, F

If you have little space on drive C and you cannot/want to expand it, it would be logical to transfer downloads to another drive where the space allows it. You can’t just transfer it like that, so you’ll 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. Once you have selected a folder on another drive, click "Apply" and you're done!

Deleting 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 remove absolutely everything without even looking at what is there.

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

Windows may notify you that you can only delete a certain file with Administrator rights. Click yes/continue.

If you have Windows XP, then move on 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 opening option: enter “C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Temp” in the address bar. Where “UserName” you need to enter the username of your PC.

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

We clean with the CCleaner utility

I would like to suggest you use a program called “ccleaner”. This is very powerful utility, which does half of what is said above, and also clears the cache, browser history and much more. If you don’t need to clear something, such as 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 everything that you do not want to clean (browser history, etc.). After that, click "clean".

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

Remove unnecessary programs

Over time, a large amount of software is collected that is essentially not used. Some you installed yourself, some installed themselves (viruses from mail.ru, Avast, etc.). Earlier, I already wrote « » , so let's look at it as an example:

Uninstalling a 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 in front of you are all the programs that are installed on the computer. Select “Avast” among them, click on it once and click “delete” in the top menu.

1. The program installer will open, in which at the very bottom there is an inconspicuous delete button. Click on it. After which, the antivirus program will try to convince you, but you continue what you started and don’t believe it.

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

Uninstalling Avast in Windows 10:

1. Open “Start”, then “Settings”, then “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. Don't delete nothing that you are not sure of, especially software from Adobe and Microsoft, and the rest is not particularly important.

Increasing space on drive C

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

Cleaning the cart

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

After such a global cleanup of the C drive, you definitely need to empty the Recycle Bin. 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 right-click on it and select “Empty Trash” from the menu. Ready! Case for 10 seconds. and there is more disk space.

What not to do

Here I will try to list all possible errors inexperienced users, and also mention tips from other sites and explain why you shouldn’t do this (if you forgot something, add it in the comments):

• Under no circumstances should you delete any files or folders on drive C if they are there without your actions. Those. You can only delete folders that you created. Otherwise, it may cause the OS to crash.
• Don't do anything with the hibernation file. Don't disable it, don't delete it. Only experienced users can disable it correctly, so as not to encounter problems in the future. system error. The megabytes won are not worth it.
• Do not disable or change the size of the page file - this will affect the performance of your system.
• Standard Disk Cleanup. In the computer properties there is a standard utility that supposedly cleans drive C of debris. Yes, this is true, but for example, in 1 year of using a computer, 60 MB of files will be collected there (this is very little). It's just not easy anymore not relevant and don't waste your time.
• Uninstall programs completely (this is described in detail above) using special installation files uninstall.exe. There is no need to delete programs along with the folder in the “program files” section, otherwise there will be many other files of this program on the disk.

Conclusion

As you can see for yourself, a lot of unnecessary files, programs and folders were deleted. Now you have a lot of free space on drive C. I also recommend cleaning your computer so that it doesn’t slow down.

If programs take longer to load, and the computer slows down with each subsequent operation, you need to clean the system drive C from “garbage”. Unused software products, remnants of incorrectly deleted software and files, saving errors due to disk fragmentation are the main reasons for uncomfortable work with a PC. Let's figure out how to clean the system drive C from unnecessary files and programs?

Standard Windows Features

While working with a computer, the user installs and updates software. Some programs are used daily, others several times a month, and others are forgotten after 1-2 weeks. It is the latest software products that you should get rid of first, using any available methods. Namely:

Manual

First of all, empty the “Trash”, “Downloads” and the “Temp” folder. These are three large storage areas for temporary and unnecessary files. You can get to the “Temp” folder using the search bar, pressing WIN+R. Then proceed like this:

• On an empty line write “ %Temp%"(without quotes);
• Enter;
• In the window that appears, type the key combination from the keyboard Ctrl+A;
• Then the key combination Shift+Delete.

Important! Not all files in the folder will be deleted, but only those that are not used during program operation. A complete cleanup can be performed before turning off the PC, after closing all programs.

The “Temp” folder is located on system C, and can also be found manually. It is recommended to free up user folders and OS storage. All of them are located on the main disk. But when manually deleting objects, you need to be extremely careful, otherwise there is a high probability of erasing a system file, without which the OS will not boot.

Important! You should not remove objects with an unfamiliar extension in the windows.old folder - files for system recovery are stored here.

Using Disk Cleanup

A safe and easy way to clean up your system C is to use the Properties tab. If the manual cleaning method is dangerous due to the possibility of erasing an object important to the OS, then using the built-in functions is absolutely safe. They do the following:

• Find the folder " My computer"and open;
• Right-click on the disk C;
• From the vertical menu select " Properties»;
• « Clean disk", and in the new window tick all menu items;
• Click " OK» confirm deletion.

In the Disk Cleanup window, you can also destroy accumulated junk in system files. To do this, select the “Clean up system files” button. The procedure is safe, but may take from 1 to 15 minutes. This is fine.

Deep sedum

It is carried out using the command line, which is called through the search bar on the Start panel. Here you need to enter the cmd symbols on English. Next do the following:

• In the “black” window that opens, enter the term: “ %systemroot%\system32\cmd.exe /c cleanmgr/sageset:65535 & cleanmgr/sagerun:65535»;
• Press Enter;
• Waiting for the process to complete.

This command will open a window with a large list of files. So the process has begun. No need to close command line until the procedure is completely completed.

Third-party resources for cleaning system and other disks

On the Internet you can find paid and shareware software products for optimizing free space. If you are servicing a home PC, the second type of utility is also perfect - less functionality, but free download. Reliable and easy to use include:

• CCleaner and Advanced;
• PC Booster and Ashampoo WinOptimizer Free;
• SlimCleaner Free and Comodo System Utilities;
• Auslogics Boost Speed ​​and Glary Utilities;
• Kaspersky Cleaner and Clean Master for PC.

CCleaner is often used. Its free functionality is quite enough for regular PC maintenance. Not long ago a new and quite interesting program Clean Master for PC. Despite the English-language interface, it is very simple and intuitive to use. Great alternative CCleaner is more suitable for beginners. The free package can be downloaded from the developer's website. Installation of the utility is standard. After installation, proceed as follows:

1. We wait until the utility is in automatic mode scan disks;
2. In the new window click " Clean Now»;
3. We are waiting to receive the report;
4. Close the program.

When regularly maintaining PC disks, you can safely use third-party resources. But if cleaning is carried out 1-3 times a year, it is better not to use non-native products for Windows 10. It is better to initially allow the system to analyze and correct errors in the registry and system files, and only then use powerful third-party services.

In our age - the age of enormous hard drives with a volume of 1-1.5-2 terabytes, despite the huge disk spaces, some problems remain the same. The space on the system disk was running out as before, and now little has changed.

There are a huge number of specialized programs designed to help the user in this seemingly difficult task, but most of them are paid. In this article we will look at methods for freeing up disk space manually and using free programs and utilities.

Next I will tell you how you can urgently free up space on the system (and not only) disk in the shortest possible time, but first you need to familiarize yourself with the basic methods of disk cleaning WITH:(What is the C: drive?).

Where does the free space on the C: drive go?

In addition to the fact that disk space runs out due to the efforts of the user himself, who actively uses his data storage, and through the efforts of various programs and the operating system itself.

In the first case, these are numerous films and music stored on the desktop (after all, we are talking about the system disk C:, and not about others, and by default, all the contents of the desktop are stored on the system disk). If you have several disks, whether physical or logical, then you can copy the entire contents of your desktop to one of these disks, depending on which has more space. If you only have a disk C:, then, unfortunately, this is not available to you.

In the second case, these are temporary files of programs that create these same temporary files to store some data that is required while the program is running until it is closed. When closing the program, these same files should be deleted, but this does not always happen, and they tend to accumulate ad infinitum. Temporary Internet files, if you use Internet browser Explorer also tends to be collectible. Of course, to free up disk space, you can delete unused programs and games, but today we will look at how to do without sacrifices, namely...

How to free up space on the C: drive without deleting the programs there?

First, let's do a little preparation, which we will need to more successfully and efficiently get rid of temporary files. For the purity of the experiment, we will measure how much space was on the hard drive of the author of this article and will monitor these values ​​after each stage of disk cleaning.

1. Go to the folder My computer and select the menu there Tools>Folder Options.

2. Go to the tab View and in the window Additional options select Show hidden files and folders. We will need this to clear temporary files from our profile. By default, these things are hidden from users, but we are not happy with this state of affairs. Click OK to save settings. For Windows users Vista/7 - to get to this window, you need to go to Start>Control Panel, select in the column View Small icons and double click on the icon Folder Options.

3. Now press Start, find the Run command there (in Windows Vista/7 they are not displayed by default - see) and type (or copy from here) the command %USERPROFILE% and press the button OK. In the window that opens, go to the folder Local Settings > Temp(Windows Vista/7/8 owners - you need to go to AppData > Local > Temp).

4. Click Ctrl+A and after that the key combination Shift+Delete(deleting files bypassing the trash can) and click Yes.

All these files can be safely deleted, because... Since they ended up in this folder, they cannot represent any value. However, during the removal process the following situation will definitely arise:

Here we answer Yes for everyone

And then this:

Here we press OK, after which we press the key Ctrl and left-click on the file with the name indicated on the message to deselect it. After that again Shift+Delete and moved on until everything that could possibly be removed was removed.

Why did this situation arise? The fact is that we are deleting files from the current profile, so there are files there that are currently used by the operating system and programs. Naturally, Windows will not allow you to delete them, so as not to cause a system crash. Everything else must be removed.

This is what the folder looks like Temp after global cleanup:

Here's how much disk space is freed up WITH:

This computer undergoes such cleaning regularly, so in your case the results may be much more noticeable. The author once freed in this way 20(!) Gigabytes disk space and this is only by deleting the contents of the Temp folder. True, it was someone else's computer.

Let's move on to the next stage. Let's go to the folder My computer, disk WITH:, folder Windows and there is a folder in it Temp. If during this long journey the message appears:

Choose with confidence Show the contents of this folder and move on.

In fact, this folder Temp left as part of the operating system only for compatibility with older programs, so it will most likely be practically empty. But the chicken pecks every grain, so we will clean everything we can, and the result will be good. We do exactly the same thing with this folder as with the previous one of the same name. Namely Ctrl+A And Shift+Delete.

In this case, about three megabytes were freed up, so there is no point in looking at how the disk space of the tested disk has changed.

Cleaning temporary Internet files. This method works if you are using Internet Explorer. Although, in other browsers everything is deleted in much the same way. Let's go to Start>(Settings>)Control Panel and double-click on the icon Internet Options.

Press the button Delete.

Check the boxes like this and click Delete. And then OK after removal is complete. Let's see how the free disk space indicators have changed:

On this computer, Internet Explorer is almost not used, so in your case the effect may be much more noticeable.

Now right click on Cart and choose Empty Trash. This is done just in case something might fly into the trash can. You don't store it in Cart the most necessary files, Truth? Just like don't store food in the trash can.

Next we will use the program DupKiller- this program will help us get rid of duplicates. The program is absolutely free. You can download it either from our website (Download DupKiller), or latest version from the manufacturer's website DupKiller. There is a suspicion that in the near future it will become a full-fledged paid commercial product, but so far this has not happened (the program is in the beta) - we use it!

Moving virtual memory from system drive C: to another drive

This method is suitable for those who have on their computer in addition to the system drive C: there are other logical drives, for example, D:, E: etc. Naturally, we are talking exclusively about hard drives, both physical and logical. Card readers, DVD drives, flash drives and other benefits of civilization, naturally, will not work. And the space on these disks should be at least 5-6GB.

To do this at any Windows versions you need to go to the Control Panel and open System properties. This is done as follows:

Let's go to Start and choose Control Panel(a small clarification for the happy owners of computers running under Windows control 8 - to enter the control panel you need to place the mouse cursor in the upper or lower right corner of the screen, select Settings And Control Panel).

In the window that opens, select Small icons or Large icons(1), depending on your visual acuity and double-click on the icon System(2).

In the window that opens, click Additional system parameters.

In the window that appears, click the button Options.

Select a tab Additionally and press the button Change.

In the next window you will need to do exactly the following things:

Uncheck the item Automatically select paging file size(1), select disk C:(2), put a radio button No swap file(3), be sure to press the button Set(4). At the same time, Windows will definitely swear at our actions and say that this is not good. But we are not afraid of difficulties and continue our sorrowful work and transfer virtual memory to disk D:(or any other one you have - whichever has more space).

Basically, if you have 16 gigabytes of RAM or more, then you can skip the next step, click OK, agree with everything and restart the computer - this will also give an increase in performance. If it is less than 8 GB, then it is better not to experiment and move on to the next step.

Now we need to place the page file on disk D: or any other of your choice. I only have C: And D:, so let's look at this example. Select the disk D:(1), then select System Size(2), press Set(3) and a button OK.

Now we press everywhere OK and answer the question about restarting the computer Yes. If Windows for some reason does not ask you to restart your computer, you should still do so for the changes you made to take effect.

Installing the DupKiller program

Select the installation language.

We accept the terms License Agreement.

You can’t really change anything here, so click Next.

Installation progress window.

Click Ready.

Now we need to go to Start>(All) Programs>DupKiller>DupKiller. At startup the advice appears. If necessary, uncheck the box Show tips on startup. Click Close.

This is what the main program window looks like. All you have to do is select the disk C:- I don’t have any duplicates on it, so for greater clarity I selected all the disks. I definitely have duplicates there, because... I duplicate especially important information on different disks (I physically have 3 of them).

Menu files and folders - select All files.

Menu Exceptions. You can leave it as is so that you understand the principle by which the program makes the selection. After analyzing the selection results, it is possible to add exceptions and scan the disk again.

Menu Search settings- we leave everything as it is.

Menu Other settings- we leave everything as it is.

Menu Removal- you can leave everything as is, you can select Delete files immediately if you are not afraid of accidentally deleting something important. For the first time it is better to leave the option with Basket.

Press the button Scan and we wait...

This is how much space is taken up by duplicates on all drives.

And now the routine begins - we put checkboxes on the files that we definitely do not need as duplicates. Keep in mind that the checkbox needs to be checked only for one copy of the duplicate, otherwise there is a high probability that both the original file and its duplicate will be deleted. There is no doubt that in this case even more space will be freed up (smile), but we agreed to do without sacrifices.

I would like to draw your attention to another point that will make your life much easier - if you see duplicate folders in the dupekiller’s list, then this routine can be simplified - go through Explorer to the desired folder and delete it manually. It will be much faster than checking thousands of boxes.

Warning for Windows Vista/7/8 users:

While the DupKiller program is running, you can see the following picture:

Remember - files located on such paths are not duplicates. These are the so-called symbolic links, i.e. the file is physically located alone on the disk, and a link to it can lead from different places. Remember this! For simplicity, you can focus on this - if a folder appears in one of the three paths ProgramData- this suggests that everything else is links.

Well, the last stage in our epic - disk defragmentation. The defragmentation program optimizes the location of files on the disk (after our actions there is something to work on, take my word for it) and compresses files that have not been used for a long time, which also frees up additional disk space.

To launch it, you need to right-click on the disk WITH:, go to the tab Service and press the button Run defragmentation.

In the window that opens, click - Defragmentation and we go to smoke, eat, buy bread, etc., since this process is quite long. It is recommended to do this once every 3-6 months, depending on how actively the computer is used.

In principle, during defragmentation, you can even try to do something, however, the computer will work very, very slowly.

An emergency way to clean up (free up space) drive C:

As I promised at the beginning of the article, I present a method for emergency release of disk space from the discharge "when it's really stuck".

You can buy new hard disk (can be external) and dump some of the information onto it, but you don’t always have the time, opportunity, or money for this.

In this case it comes to the rescue Disk compression. If you go to My computer, right click on the drive WITH:(and for any other purpose, except a flash drive and a floppy drive) and select Properties, then you will see a checkbox Shrink disk to save space. After inserting it and clicking on the OK button or Apply a window will appear:

Here you need to select To C:\ and all subfolders and files and press OK. The procedure will take from 10 minutes to half an hour and will free up a certain amount of disk space.

On the other side of the coin in this case, you will notice that the speed of the computer has decreased. This happens because on a compressed disk, when opening a file, the operating system must unpack it, and then perform certain actions. This very “unpacking” takes up processor performance and machine time. So even if you had to squeeze system disk- try to find an opportunity to open it back up as quickly as possible in order to return the computer to its previous performance.

Owners of computers with Windows Vista/7/8.

Location of data in folders of user profiles of computers with installed operating systems Windows systems Vista/7/8 are different from those in Windows XP. Here we will briefly look at the main differences:

Folder Documents and Settings is now called a folder Users;
- Folder Local Settings is now in the folder AppData and is called Local- there you can find a thick folder Temp and clean.

I also recommend using a program called CCleaner. The program is good, the only thing it can’t do is clean the profiles of other users on the computer. Those. It will delete all temporary files accumulated in the folders of the active profile, and all the rest either manually or under each one, go in and run CCleaner.