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Subject:
From:
Tom Mayer SC <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Personal Computer Hardware discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 8 Apr 2013 10:00:17 -0700
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Bruce

I assume that your have a large capacity hard drive (many GB) and that 
is why you are concerned about having slightly less than 1GB free space. 
There are a few programs that will safely clean out unnecessary files 
from your computer. There is a built in program in Window's Accessories 
called Disk Cleanup. You can, as a minimum, set it to rid your computer 
of temporary files including temporary internet files. The "restore" 
function in Windows normally has, by default, a relatively large 
percentage area set up to hold the restore files. If you have a large 
capacity drive, this actual area becomes an overkill and you can reduce 
the percentage setting which will reduce the actual area to a more 
reasonable size.

Another safe program is CCleaner. You can download and install it from 
CNET. Using the default settings, run "analyze"  and then "clean". I 
have never had any problems using this program. If you rely upon cookies 
to make it easier to use some sites, you should eliminate cookies from 
being analyzed. You can later adjust some settings to include a number 
of personal preferences. I have also not had any problems with this 
program cleaning up the registry (helps free up some relatively small 
amount of space).

I may be wrong, but I believe from your description that you do 
backups/clones on the same hard drive. This seems to be of little use if 
your hard drive deteriorates and/or crashes. I backup/clone to a 
separate hard drive leaving my primary drive with space for active 
programs and files.

There are other programs/procedures to reduce the space used on hard 
drives if the forgoing is not enough. However, they are of diminishing 
and/or questionable returns after using the preceding.

As to the computer performance, you should have 4GB  of RAM if your 
computer will handle that amount. Within certain restraints, adding RAM 
is the easiest way to increase performance. You should look at the 
MSCONFIG (through "run") file and reduce the startup programs to the 
minimum needed to run all the time. You should look at your scheduled 
programs and eliminate those that are not essential and adjust the 
scheduled frequencies and times for other programs to cause the least 
interferences during times you normally are active on the computer. 
After you do the hard drive cleanup, you can do a defragmentation (also 
in accessories).

I hope this helps.

Tom

On 4/7/2013 9:47 PM, Bruce Lund wrote:
> Just made the startling discovery that I have a grand total of 946MB of free space on my hard drive. I am currently compressing the drive to free up some space but that is saying it is going to run for 15 hours. Surprisingly, the only real issue I have had is that YouTube videos lock up my computer which I assume could be tied to that lack of hard drive space. (Will hopefully find out soon.!
>
> In the past, I have used CloneSpy on another computer with some success, although I am reluctant to add anything more to my hard drive until I free more space up. So what space CAN I free up? I don't download a lot of programs on my computer, nor do I have a lot of video or audio files. (Exceedingly few.) Probably my greatest sin is printing to pdf but even that I don't THINK I do to excess.
>
> But what I do, though, is relent to computer paranoia. So if there is a built in an option to save my system/program/whatever files, if asked I probably allow for more space than less when asked how many or how much space to allocate. I am running a Compaq Evo Desktop D510 w XP Professional. I have not loaded any additional program to back anything up on my hard drive, but suspect there might be some built in programs that are saving lots of stuff that I don't need to save. I know that is not a lot of information to go on, but I just have this funny feeling there is something built in that is eating up my hard drive space besides programs and saving to pdf.
>
> Bruce Lund
>
>         

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