I installed my PC initially with a separate C drive dedicated for Windows and system specific files. Unfortunately it turned out that I picked that drive too small as I didn’t foresee that there is plenty of software out there that simply won’t allow you to install to a different location than C:\Program Files. To add to that, Windows itself had its share of service packs and updates which doesn’t actually make it smaller in size either. And then there’s the .NET framework, in all it’s versions.
So soon I ran into the very annoying issue that Windows kept telling me I was running low on disk space on my C drive. This eventually causes updates unpacking to your temp folder (also on the C drive of course) to fail, stuffing up even more hard drive space. Over the years I found a few tricks to avoid or fix this issue and as a good blogger I also documented those right here.
Here’s a little round-up of what you can do to free up some disk space, or create some more:
- Little disk space on your system drive or any other? Here’s 5 easy and quick ways that can clear up a lot of space.
- If there is plenty of space left on another partition you can use GParted to reallocated some of that free pace to your system partition instead. Worked like a charm for me.
- If you’re in trouble with only a few megabytes left on your system drive and you can’t even install tools to help with that because your temp folder is located on the C drive, here’s a tip on how to temporarily redirect that temp folder to another drive, only to run that single program. Works great for those Microsoft installers that download their files from the web.
- Another disk space saver is to move your C:\Documents and Settings\profile folder to another drive. This one will not only save you a few gigs of space but it’ll make sure you’re set for the future as well. If you relocated it to a large enough drive that is.
Spread the word if any of these tips helped you out and saved you from wasting hours reinstalling your machine. It saved me from doing just that a few times, so I’m hoping this post can be a huge time-saver for anyone coming across it.