Where have all my disk GB gone?

Hi DarkStar.

Firstly, delete all System Restore Points except the last one. They can take around 24-28 GB, which is a huge volume of wasted space. I do this daily using AVG Tune Up.

Secondly, Windows.old is not required so is wasting space and can be deleted quite safely, except there is a method for that which I forget. It's here on the forums somewhere.

But I'll just post this real quick so that you can do the above while I look for how to delete Windows.old. Back soon.

Christophe

PS: Congrats on Reaper. I use it, too. Great choice!

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How to Delete Windows.old

Hi, if concerned about where your space has gone, try Wiztree (free).


This also lets you see and delete from folders normally hidden from file explorer.

for C: it shows as 105GB, which seems a ridiculous amount.

- that normally includes all installed programs and your default library folders (Documents, Downloads etc).

Well, if you'd downloaded and installed a few big games or major applications, that can represent a lot of space - but you say you haven't... so try Wiztree.

The size of the Windows folder is rather more consistent from PC to PC of course. (Say 25Gb or so).

Having said that, when is that Windows.old contents actually used?

- should you elect to 'Go back to the previous build'. And no, there's no point in saving it elsewhere normally.

In some circumstances, when things go wrong with an upgrade, it may be useful to retrieve files from it - but of course if you're protected with appropriate backups and disk imaging (as you should be) that would be of no significance.

Use Wiztree.

Note: your posted screenshots do not expand - they are not accessible.

Here's how:


And there are tutorials if you need them.

@DarkStar

For reasons known only to Microsoft, some files and folders are not shown in Windows' graphical file display or by the command-line DIR command, even if you run them with administrator privileges and have "show hidden files and folders" enabled. (The latter is supposed to allow them to be seen, but doesn't on my computer.) A few of the invisible files are swapfile.sys, pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys. These three alone can be quite large, depending on how you use your computer. Also, unless you've changed your computer's performance settings, they're dynamically allocated by Windows.

I have Cygwin installed on my computer. (It's a linux-like software development environment.) It shows quite a few files and folders in the root of the C: partition which Windows does not show. Here's what it shows on one of my computers.
Maybe there's some way to persuade recent versions of Windows 10 to show the "missing" files that someone else knows about.

Wiztree shows all of those- easily.

And if you change 2 settings under Folder options you can see hidden and system files in file explorer- but don't leave it like that. Like this:


swapfile
pagefile
visible.

dalchina said:

Wiztree shows all of those- easily.

And if you change 2 settings under Folder options you can see hidden and system files in file explorer- but don't leave it like that. Like this:


swapfile
pagefile
visible.

I've used Wiztree in the past and it is, as you say, a great way of seeing what is taking up space on a system. I've just installed it again on my present system, prompted by your recommendation, for which my thanks.

Regards,

Christophe