mngerhold, I think there's a little confusion going on here. What I meant was that I hadn't heard of Reliability History and didn't know it was something in Windows. Also, I hadn't heard of CSV...

Thanks, mngerhold. I'd never heard the term before; didn't know it was part of Windows. Now I know.

Bree:

Running dism.exe, in the results it says something about the date of last cleaning. I took that as self-cleaning, but based on what you're saying I guess it comes from what I do running...

Megahertz:

Re-starting the computer did not change the amount of free space.

I did the steps to analyze WinSxS. It says no change is recommended, so that settles that issue. Apparently this...

Megahertz, I've done as you advised. After making the change, I re-started the computer and cleaned 3 different ways. After re-start, my free space went from 846 to 850. After cleaning, free space...

Megahertz, I assume you're talking about the "Currently allocated" number on the Virtual Memory panel which I show in post #26. I don't understand what you mean by "(fixed value=min=Max) + set",...

RickC, I'm not a programmer and can't do a lot of 'command line' type stuff; it has to be pretty simple. After a little looking I've found FolderSizes by Key Metric Software. I will contact them...

zbook, concerning the first link, I've already dealt with Storage Sense in an early post, and the other items don't apply to me, aside from the fact that they have nothing to do with why I'm losing...

joeandmarg0, I usually know what the problem is when I'm restoring a system image. Three times it was ransomware, and that was several years ago when I was using M$'s system image process, not...

zbook, I appreciate your (and everybody else's) trying to help, but this "run this" business is getting out of hand. I've run stuff up one side and down the other, and NONE of it has shown anything...

zbook, I don't have SSD.

Incredible list of cleaning options. Some I already do; some just don't apply to me. Also, the problem isn't that I don't clean. We're still trying to figure out what...

Megahertz, here it is (see below).

Can anybody answer my questions in post #31? [Edit: Also post #26 and the first paragraph of post #28.]

Bree, I've taken a quick look at Component Store. ...

Bree, not sure I see your point. Can't check right this second (time for supper), but I'm pretty sure I've cleaned since my last W10 update. In any event, that wouldn't explain the 10s of GBs I've...

Thanks, MisterEd, we've gotten past that point. If you wanna start at the bottom and read up a few posts, I'll listen to anything else you wanna weigh in on. Thanks again.

SIW2, did it take 10 years to get to the size it is? As I said in the OP, free space has been going down for a while, but particularly recently.

How would I know if it's "paging a lot?"

If I...

zbook, your post was there when I finished my post. pagefile.sys is almost exactly 3 times my RAM size. Is that what you and the M$ info are talking about? If I changed the allocated amount, I...

I ran chkdsk; apparently no problems were found. The boot process re-started, and I walked away. I came back a minute or two later, and there was another chkdsk message on the screen. It...

I turned off Hibernate (which I don't use) and gained 8GB. It's nice that I regained that space, but since it never should have been on to begin with, I still haven't addressed the fundamental issue...

SIW2:
I mentioned restore points in my original post only because it was mentioned in previous threads about this topic. Somebody implied that they might be in part responsible for my losing free...

I went to Reliability History and looked at everything it had to show me--back into April. Nothing there of any importance.

SIW2:

Apparently now I'm supposed to download 3 programs to look at...

joeandmarg0:

Concerning Reflect, I didn't mean the same problem, many times, just some problem that couldn't be solved (at least, easily) by any method other than restoring a system image. Like a...

hsehestedt:

1. I know what my screenprint says about 'hibernation,' but I don't completely understand it. I don't know that I turned it on. If I turn it off, what happens/what do I lose? Also,...

AK6DN:

It's astonishing to me that you don't clean your drive, but . . . whatever.

Concerning "the problem," if I'm losing multi-GBs at a time for no apparent good reason, that by definition is...

Others have written about this; I guess it's my turn now.

I have a 1TB hard drive. After installing W10 years ago and adding everything else, I had about 880 GB of free space. Over time, of...

I believe I had something in the ESD folder at one time. Now, if I recall, every time I upgrade Windows, I wind up with an empty ESD folder, and I delete it, along with other nonsense that appears...