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From: William B. Lurie on 17 Jun 2010 12:16
kraut wrote:
> On Thu, 17 Jun 2010 11:13:30 -0400, "William B. Lurie"
> <billurie(a)nospam.net> wrote:
>
>> My Master system (XP/Home/SP3) has been growing and growing
>> and is now nearing 20GB. I get rid of programs that I have
>> no need for periodically, but it occurs to me that Windows
>> Update has favored me with a zillion KB's over the years,
>> downloaded and installed them. I wonder why I still need to
>> store the KB's themselves. Isn't there a way to delete
>> the accumulated KB's that have been incorporated? Such
>> as, why not from Add/Remove Programs?
>>
>> I will always have a backup system that has them if they're needed.
>> And I'm aware that 'support' for XP/SP2 is going away shortly.
>
>
> Check out Windows Update Remover at
>
> http://www.tech-pro.net/windows-update-remover.html
>
> Windows XP Update Remover provides a quick and easy way to delete the
> backup files left behind after every Windows update and reclaim
> valuable disk space. It can also remove Windows updates that appear to
> be causing trouble.
>
> Whenever Windows Update runs to install security fixes and other
> updates to your system, it creates a folder within the Windows folder
> containing all the files replaced during the update. These folders
> have names like "$NtUninstall..." and are highlighted in blue. The
> contents of these folders are only ever needed if you uninstall an
> update. If you are not going to uninstall an update then its backup
> folder can be removed to save disk space. However, these folders
> cannot (or should not) simply be deleted, because they are referred to
> by links in the Registry.
>
> Manually removing these folders and their related Registry links is
> possible, but not easy. This is where Windows XP Update Remover comes
> in. It makes clean removal of these folders easy. Just select an
> update from the list, read the information about it to see what it is,
> and then click Remove backup folder. If you want to know what an
> update does before deleting its backup folders then you can click on a
> link to Microsoft web pages that describe the update.
>
> Windows XP Update Remover can uninstall Windows updates as well. This
> is not something you will often need to do, unless you suspect that an
> update has caused problems with your computer, so the program displays
> a warning before allowing you to proceed with removal of an update.
>
>
> If an update has been running fine for months then it is safe to bet
> that you will not need the backup files and it is safe to delete them.
>
> I use this prog and have had no problems.
>
>
Thanks for that tool, Kraut. I forgot to mention earlier that
I was aware of the $NtUninstall series in c:\Windows but also
that there were too many to delete manually, and then there
would be Registry to contemplate.

I'm not concerned with deleting all those already-installed
downloads. If it should ever be a concern, I always have a recent
clone to fall back on. What I don't like is having a 20GB-sized
system that used to be a lot smaller.....and now performing
partition operations takes just that much longer, moving all
that stuff which I regard as having served its purpose.
From: Daave on 17 Jun 2010 13:30
William B. Lurie wrote:

> What I don't like is having a 20GB-sized
> system that used to be a lot smaller.....and now performing
> partition operations takes just that much longer, moving all
> that stuff which I regard as having served its purpose.

In the overall scheme of things, 20GB isn't that huge. What kind of
partition operations do you perform that are now taking longer than they
used to?


From: William B. Lurie on 17 Jun 2010 13:37
kraut wrote:

>
>
> Check out Windows Update Remover at
>
> http://www.tech-pro.net/windows-update-remover.html
>
> Windows XP Update Remover provides a quick and easy way to delete the
> backup files left behind after every Windows update and reclaim
> valuable disk space. It can also remove Windows updates that appear to
> be causing trouble.
>
>
Using it fine, Kraut, and thanx again. It saves 800MB that now
doesn't need moving whenevr I do a partition operation.
From: Shenan Stanley on 17 Jun 2010 15:04
William B. Lurie wrote:
> My Master system (XP/Home/SP3) has been growing and growing
> and is now nearing 20GB. I get rid of programs that I have
> no need for periodically, but it occurs to me that Windows
> Update has favored me with a zillion KB's over the years,
> downloaded and installed them. I wonder why I still need to
> store the KB's themselves. Isn't there a way to delete
> the accumulated KB's that have been incorporated? Such
> as, why not from Add/Remove Programs?
>
> I will always have a backup system that has them if they're needed.
> And I'm aware that 'support' for XP/SP2 is going away shortly.

What does the last sentence matter if you have SP3 as you said?

Anyway - Windows XP with SP3 and a whole bunch of extra programs would take
between 4.5GB and 10GB in most cases. Most of the time - if you are using
more than that - it is really *you* that is using more than that.

Want to clear up space - but be smart about it?

Download/install the "Windows Installer CleanUp Utility":
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301

After installing, do the following:

Start button --> RUN
(no "RUN"? Press the "Windows Key" + R on your keyboard)
--> type in:
"%ProgramFiles%\Windows Installer Clean Up\msizap.exe" g!
--> Click OK.
(The quotation marks and percentage signs and spacing should be exact.)

If you are comfortable with the stability of your system, you can delete the
uninstall files for the patches that Windows XP has installed...
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/spack.htm
( Particularly of interest here - #4 )
( Alternative: http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_hotfix_backup.htm )

You can run Disk Cleanup - built into Windows XP - to erase all but your
latest restore point and cleanup even more "loose files"..

How to use Disk Cleanup
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310312

You can turn off hibernation if it is on and you don't use it..

When you hibernate your computer, Windows saves the contents of the system's
memory to the hiberfil.sys file. As a result, the size of the hiberfil.sys
file will always equal the amount of physical memory in your system. If you
don't use the hibernate feature and want to recapture the space that Windows
uses for the hiberfil.sys file, perform the following steps:

- Start the Control Panel Power Options applet (go to Start, Settings,
Control Panel, and click Power Options).
- Select the Hibernate tab, clear the "Enable hibernation" check box, then
click OK; although you might think otherwise, selecting Never under the
"System hibernates" option on the Power Schemes tab doesn't delete the
hiberfil.sys file.
- Windows will remove the "System hibernates" option from the Power Schemes
tab and delete the hiberfil.sys file.

You can control how much space your System Restore can use...

1. Click Start, right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
2. Click the System Restore tab.
3. Highlight one of your drives (or C: if you only have one) and click on
the "Settings" button.
4. Change the percentage of disk space you wish to allow.. I suggest moving
the slider until you have just about 1GB (1024MB or close to that...)
5. Click OK.. Then Click OK again.

You can control how much space your Temporary Internet Files can utilize...

Empty your Temporary Internet Files and shrink the size it stores to a
size between 64MB and 128MB..

- Open ONE copy of Internet Explorer.
- Select TOOLS -> Internet Options.
- Under the General tab in the "Temporary Internet Files" section, do the
following:
- Click on "Delete Cookies" (click OK)
- Click on "Settings" and change the "Amount of disk space to use:" to
something between 64MB and 128MB. (It may be MUCH larger right
now.)
- Click OK.
- Click on "Delete Files" and select to "Delete all offline contents"
(the checkbox) and click OK. (If you had a LOT, this could take 2-10
minutes or more.)
- Once it is done, click OK, close Internet Explorer, re-open Internet
Explorer.

You can use an application that scans your system for log files and
temporary files and use that to get rid of those:

Ccleaner (Free!)
http://www.ccleaner.com/

Other ways to free up space..

JDiskReport
http://www.jgoodies.com/freeware/jdiskreport/index.html

SequoiaView
http://www.win.tue.nl/sequoiaview/

Those can help you visually discover where all the space is being used.

You should now perform a full CHKDSK on your system drive (C:)...

How to scan your disks for errors
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315265
* will take time and a reboot

You should now perform a full Defragment on your system drive (C:)...

How to Defragment your hard drives
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314848
* will take time

Uninstall any and all third-party firewall applications (ZoneAlarm, etc)
and utilize the built-in Windows Firewall only.

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html


From: William B. Lurie on 17 Jun 2010 15:29
Daave wrote:
> William B. Lurie wrote:
>
>> What I don't like is having a 20GB-sized
>> system that used to be a lot smaller.....and now performing
>> partition operations takes just that much longer, moving all
>> that stuff which I regard as having served its purpose.
>
> In the overall scheme of things, 20GB isn't that huge. What kind of
> partition operations do you perform that are now taking longer than they
> used to?
>
>
Daave, I do a system backup every week or so, and I delete an older
backup to make room for a new one. Then I make a clone from the saved
backup and test the clone to make sure I can always jump right back
if I have to.

But Shenan Stanley's exhaustive advice just received has a
lot that I knew, a lot that I didn't, and will require a
lot of study.

BTW, I have all XP System Restore inoperative. I prefer a
full bootable copy to fall back on. On a separate drive.
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