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Subject:
From:
Don Penlington <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Personal Computer Hardware discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 9 Apr 2013 04:17:49 +1000
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Bruce writes:

<<

I have a grand total of 946MB of free space on my hard drive>>

There's an ancient diagnostic program built-in to XP called "Dr Watson". It goes way back to W95 days --maybe even earlier.

I've seen instances where it can run amok and build up an enormous number of log files, in which it logs every error you've ever had. These log files are buried deep in the system and I've seen cases where it has completely filled hard drives. The program can be disabled, I seem to remember that it runs by default in XP.

You could run Ccleaner to delete all log files (not sure whether it will find the Dr Watson ones) but the big problem with that is that many older software create log files to record their installation steps. Without these log files, you may not be able to install such programs.  Thus, it's not a good idea to delete all log files. Most are redundant, but not all. In general, they're not likely to consume much space anyway.

There's a brilliant little stand-alone program (it doesn't need to be installed, and you can run it off a USB stick---it's tiny). It will show you exactly where everything is on your computer in a pie-chart, from which it will be obvious what's taking up space. Just hover your mouse over each segment for details.
http://www.steffengerlach.de/freeware/

Don Penlington

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