During its operation, the operating system creates a lot of temporary data that is stored on disk (usually drive C) in the form of files and registry entries. These can be files from update packages, archivers, shadow copies, content downloaded from the Internet, etc. Third-party programs behave in a similar way, for example, browsers that store website data in a cache. Some temporary files are deleted automatically after a certain time, others remain on the disk until they are forcibly deleted.
If the user does not regularly maintain and clean up the C drive, the free space on it becomes less and less, to the point that the disk eventually ends up filled to capacity with temporary files, which precludes further writing of any data to it. reduces its performance. There are two ways out of this situation - either increase the size of the system partition at the expense of the user volume, or perform a comprehensive cleanup of it, which is more preferable. Let's see how to free up space on your local C drive in Windows 7/10.
The system volume contains many important files that ensure the normal operation of Windows, so deep cleaning it should be approached with the utmost care. What can you delete from the C drive to free up space and not disrupt the system? All its contents can be divided into three groups. The first includes files that can be deleted without any fear. The second consists of files, the deletion of which, although it will not harm the system, can still cause certain problems under some circumstances. The third group includes files that cannot be deleted, as this can make programs and the system inoperable. You can clean up drive C without negative consequences by deleting:
With some caution, you can delete shadow copies () created during the installation of updates and stored in backup copies, files from previous system installations (Windows.old folder), unnecessary components and applications, folders of uninstalled programs in the ProgramData, Program Files and Roaming directories, MSOCache Microsoft Office folder. If you do not use Quick Start, you can delete the file hiberfil.sys in the root of drive C, having previously disabled these functions in the settings. It is acceptable, but not recommended, to delete the swap file pagefile.sys. Other files and folders on drive C cannot be deleted so as not to disrupt the operation of the system.
First, let's look at how to clear drive C of unnecessary files in Windows 7/10 using the operating system itself. Windows has a built-in utility for these purposes. cleanmgr.exe, which can be launched either through the properties of the partition being cleaned or through the “Run” dialog box. After the utility scans the disk for outdated files, check the boxes on the “Disk Cleanup” tab and click “OK.”
If you click the “Clean up system files” button, reports, device driver packages, error dumps and, additionally, restore points, with the exception of the most recent one, will become available for deletion.
For a deeper and more thorough cleaning of drive C from garbage, you can use the built-in console utilities Dism And vssadmin. The first allows you to delete temporary data from the WinSxS folder, including backups created before installing Windows updates. To do this, use the following commands executed in the CMD console running as administrator:
The first command does the same thing as the cleanmgr.exe utility, only more thoroughly.
The second deletes all backup update packages from the WinSxS folder.
The third command can delete all restore points, including the last one.
However, you should use these tools with caution, since after executing the indicated commands, you will no longer be able to roll back the system to a working state or a previous version.
Note: Before cleaning the WinSxS folder, it is recommended to set its true size, thereby making sure that it really needs cleaning. To do this, you need to run the command on the command line Dism.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /AnalyzeComponentStore and compare the actual size of the component store with the size indicator in the Explorer properties.
After updating Windows to a newer version, a folder appears in the root of drive C Windows.old, which can take up significant disk space.
The contents of this directory are copies of the system installation files of the previous version of Windows. If you are determined not to return to the old version of the system, the Windows.old folder can be deleted. This is done again either using cleanmgr.exe or using the command line. In the first case, you need to find and select the “Previous Windows installations” item on the “Advanced” tab; in the second case, run the command in the CMD console running as administrator rd /s /q c:/windows.old.
You can get a little extra space on the C drive by removing unused components, the same ones that are accessible through the classic Add/Remove Programs applet.
The standard Dism utility is also used here. To select and uninstall an unused Windows component, run the following two commands in the CMD console running with elevated rights:
The first command displays a list of all components in the system, the second deletes the selected element. In this example, its name must be substituted for the NAME line element.
With the exception of Windows 8.1 and 10 universal apps, almost all desktop programs are installed in the folder Program Files. If a program is no longer needed, it should be deleted so that it does not take up disk space, but this must be done either using a standard uninstaller or using special third-party programs. However, after uninstalling applications, folders with configuration files may remain on the disk, the weight of which can reach several hundred megabytes. Such data must be deleted manually.
Let's say you have removed Microsoft Office or Skype from your computer and you also want to get rid of all their remaining “tails” on the C drive. To do this, carefully check the Program Files and ProgramData directories in the root of drive C, as well as the folders C:/Users/Username/AppData. If the folder name matches the name of the deleted application, it can be deleted.
The AppData folder is a little more complicated. This hidden directory contains three subfolders: Local, LocalLow and Roaming. The first stores files created during the operation of various programs. You cannot clear it entirely, as this will most likely lead to the loss of saved application settings, however, half-empty folders of uninstalled programs can be completely safely deleted. You can also safely clear the contents of the folder located in it Temp.
The same applies to the LocalLow and Roaming folders; it is permissible to delete from them only those directories that belonged to previously uninstalled applications.
Note: By clearing the contents of the Local, LocalLow and Roaming folders, you lose user settings and data saved in their cache. For example, after deleting its folders in your user profile, you will lose your current messenger settings and part of your message history.
As for removing universal applications, they are uninstalled using the standard tools of the system itself or the CCleaner program, which will be discussed below. You can also move some universal applications from drive C to drive D, if they support this feature.
Transferring desktop programs to another volume is also possible; there is a special utility for this purpose SteamMover, which you can download from the developer’s website www.traynier.com/software/steammover.
Many novice users are interested in how to delete unnecessary files from drive C using third-party programs, as well as which of these programs are more effective and safe in this regard. These can be recommended CCleaner– a simple, fast, convenient, and most importantly safe Windows disk and registry cleaner. This program allows you to delete temporary data from the Internet and Windows itself, the contents of the thumbnail cache and DNS, Index.dat files, memory dumps, fragments of chkdsk files, various system logs, outdated prefetch files and a lot of other unimportant data.
Using CCleaner, you can clear the system registry of incorrect entries, optimize, enable, disable or remove browser extensions, analyze the contents of hard drives, search for duplicates and, of course, uninstall unnecessary applications, including universal ones.
CCleaner's interface is very simple, so understanding its simple functionality will not be difficult even for a novice user.
Considering, however, that the main purpose of CCleaner is still cleaning, all its additional tools have limited functionality. If your C drive is full of unknown things, and you want to find out what exactly it is, then for these purposes it is better to use specific utilities, for example, Scanner, JdiskReport or their analogues, showing more accurate information about the file structure of the media with the ability to navigate through subdirectories.
The steps described above are usually enough to free up enough space on the system volume, but what if drive C is still full? What else can you do to get additional space? One option is to clear the contents of the folder FileRepository located at C:/Windows/System32/DriverStore.
This directory contains copies of device drivers that were ever connected to the computer, and may also contain outdated versions of drivers. Before deleting driver packages from the FileRepository folder, it is highly advisable to create a complete list of them and find only outdated versions in it, leaving the rest untouched. It also wouldn't hurt to create a complete copy of all drivers installed on the system. To list the DriverStore drivers in a file, run the following command in an elevated command prompt:
pnputil.exe /e > C:/drivers.log
Compare the driver versions in the list and remove only the outdated ones.
To remove the selected driver, immediately run the command in the console pnputil.exe /d oem№.inf, where № is the name of the driver in the list.
If an error appears in the console when uninstalling a driver, it means the driver is being used by the system. There is no need to touch such a component.
As an alternative to the command line, you can use the free utility Driver Store Explorer, just designed to remove old unused device drivers.
Thanks to the hibernation mode, the user can quickly return to work in running applications; on the other hand, its use requires the allocation of significant space on the system disk, slightly less than or equal to the amount of RAM. If having free space on your hard drive is a priority for you, you can disable hibernation mode by deleting the hiberfil.sys container file.
Launch the CMD console as an administrator and run the command in it powercfg -h off. Hibernation will be disabled and the bulky hiberfil.sys file will be removed.
Note: The hibernation file can be compressed by a maximum of two times with the command powercfg hibernate size 50.
In addition to other hidden system objects, there is also a file in the root of drive C that can be deleted under certain conditions. This is the swap file pagefile.sys. This file plays the role of a RAM buffer, and if an application does not have enough RAM to operate, its data is temporarily written to . Accordingly, if there is no swap file, a heavy application will slow down greatly or simply freeze while waiting for faster RAM to become available. Therefore, disabling and deleting the paging file is not recommended unless the computer has a very large amount of RAM.
If your PC has more than 10 GB of memory or you do not intend to run resource-intensive applications, you can try carefully disabling swap. To do this, open Advanced system settings and on the “Advanced” tab in the “Performance” block, click the “Options” button.
This will open another window. Switch to the “Advanced” tab, and then click the Change button in the “Virtual Memory” block.
Uncheck the “Automatically select paging file size” checkbox, turn on the “No paging file” radio button, save the settings and reboot. The pagefile.sys file will be deleted.
Users who have installed Microsoft Office have a hidden folder in the root of the system volume MSOcache, the weight of which can reach several gigabytes.
This folder is an office suite cache and contains files that may be needed to restore Microsoft Office if it becomes corrupted. The MSOcache folder is not involved in launching Microsoft Office or working with documents, so it can be deleted in the standard way. Just keep in mind that if Microsoft Office is damaged for some reason, you will have to restore the package from the installation disk with its distribution.
You can free up some free space on drive C without deleting anything from it at all. Instead, all system files can be compressed. To do this, just open the properties of drive C, on the “General” tab, check the box “Shrink this drive to save space” and click “OK”.
To compress system files in Windows 10, you can use the function CompactOS by running one of two commands in the CMD console running as administrator:
The second command performs the same actions as the first, but in forced mode. It is used if you really want to shrink the system volume, and the first command rejects the operation, considering it inappropriate. Compression is completely reversible and to return the file system to its normal state, just execute the reverse command compact /CompactOs:never.
In addition to NTFS compression, LZX compression is available in Windows 10, but it has a number of disadvantages, which is why it is not widely used. LZX compression is applicable to read-only files and directories, but an entire system volume cannot be compressed with its help due to the risk of an unbootable system.
During its operation, the Windows 7 operating system accumulates a lot of garbage and unnecessary files. This is usually a consequence of system updates, unpacking archives and browsing the Internet. The system itself has standard utilities for removing junk, but they do not start automatically and periodically you need to clean it manually.
Removing unnecessary files and directories from the hard drive is done using the internal “DELete” command. This can be done both from the operating system and when starting the computer when Windows 7 is not yet loaded.
To delete an individual file, enter the “DEL” command and the file name. To delete a group of files (for example, all temporary files that have the TMP extension), you can use the wildcard character: “DEL *.TMP”.
To delete temporary files via the command line, do the following:
Launch Command Prompt via Windows Search
Navigate to the root system of the disk using the "CD.." command
Enter the command “DEL C:\WINDOWS\TEMP\*.TMP”
In the same way, you can delete unnecessary directories, but instead of the “DEL” command, “DELTREE” is entered.
Using DOS wildcards - simple, but powerful and dangerous. This method requires precise knowledge of the location of files and directories - it is not entirely suitable for untrained users.
If you are not using any of the file shells in which directory files are visible, it is recommended that you view their listing with the “DIR” command before deleting files. For example, if you intend to delete all files with the TXT extension, before entering the “DEL *.TXT” command, you should play it safe and view them with the “DIR *.TXT” command.
In the Windows 7 operating system, there is a separate folder for storing temporary files. It contains files and directories that remain after installing programs, unpacking various archives, and surfing the Internet. To remove them, do the following:
You can also get to this folder as follows:
Disk Cleanup is a program built into the operating system that removes unnecessary junk from your computer. With its help, you can find many files that have not been used for a long time. Removing them will increase the efficiency of your computer. All temporary and unused system files will be deleted and the recycle bin will be emptied.
To start cleaning, do the following:
Expand "All Programs"
Run the Disk Cleanup utility
Select the disk to clean
Check the items you are interested in and click OK
You can also access this utility in the following way:
In addition to system garbage, long-forgotten programs or virus software may be installed on your computer. To remove them, do the following:
Open Control Panel
Click "Uninstall a program" when categorized
Remove all unnecessary programs
Overwrite the remaining folders
Using specialized programs, you can clean your hard drive most effectively, maximizing your computer's performance.
You can easily find all the above software on the Internet.
Wise Care 365 comes in free and paid versions. It cleans the registry, local disk, allows you to edit startup, optimizes the operation of many applications and the operating system itself. If you use it constantly, you can avoid various crashes and freezes on your computer.
Immediately after starting the program, run a system scan
After receiving the scan results, correct any errors found
Click on the "Cleanup" button to heal registry errors
Click "Scan" under "Deep Cleaning"
Once the deep scan is complete, click "Cleanup"
Run hard drive defragmentation
Disable startup programs
Glary Utilities comes in free and paid versions. This program cleans and restores the registry, analyzes disk space, deletes temporary files, defragments the disk, and also has many other functions.
Go to the 1-Click tab and click Find Issues
Click on "Erase traces"
Click "Erase Traces"
Mark the items that interest you and close the window
360 Total Security is a free antivirus program based on the Avira and Defender engines. This program does not conflict with other antiviruses and has a number of additional advantages. It allows you to clean the system of unnecessary files, optimize startup applications, search for vulnerabilities, compress the disk, and can generally speed up your computer.
Run a system check
The article provides seven ways to solve the problem of insufficient free space on the Windows system disk, both using built-in system tools and third-party utilities.
Thirteen years ago, when the Windows XP operating system appeared and instantly gained popularity, no one was particularly worried about the size of the system disk. 20-30 GB on disk "C" was enough to install both the system itself and the software. With the advent of Windows 7, PC owners for the first time were massively faced with the problem of lack of space on the system disk - this operating system itself occupied about 10 GB, and programs absorbed approximately the same amount, registering and constantly updating. The 20-25 GB system disk filled up very quickly. And many even had to resort to repartitioning their computer disks in order to increase the system disk at the expense of another disk.
To ensure that there is always enough free space on the system partition, it must be kept clean and tidy and periodically monitored to see if it is cluttered. If Windows reports that there is not enough free space on the system disk - usually on drive C - it's time to clean it up. Let's look at 7 ways to clean the system disk with Windows 8 installed below.
Before you start cleaning up your disk, you need to remember how much free space is currently available on it. In the future, this will allow you to evaluate the effectiveness of the work done by comparing the initial and final figures.
First, you need to check whether files are stored on the system disk that, in principle, may not be stored there - these are media files, folders with documents, disk images, program installation files, etc. All this can be transferred to a non-system drive; moreover, it is even recommended that all important files be stored on a non-system drive (D, E, etc.), so that if an unexpected system failure occurs and it has to be reinstalled, this data were not destroyed during formatting of the system disk.
As a rule, all files downloaded from the Internet are stored in download folders assigned by default by browsers on the system drive. To prevent the system drive from becoming cluttered with downloaded files in the future, you need to assign a different folder for downloads in the browser settings, but on a non-system drive.
Under no circumstances should you transfer system files to another drive, which means that you better avoid the Windows folder on the tenth route.
To search for media files and documents, you can use Windows Search and set search criteria for the desired file types within the system drive.
Check the found files further, cut out the necessary ones and paste them on a non-system drive using the context menu, and simply delete the unnecessary ones.
Remove all those programs and games that you do not use. As a rule, after removing large resource-intensive games, quite a lot of space is freed up. To correctly remove software and clean the system from remaining traces, use special software - uninstallers.
Here are some popular uninstallers:
The Windows operating system is equipped with a standard service that analyzes the space on the system disk and identifies files that can be deleted to free up space without causing harm to the system.
In Windows 8 Explorer, open “My Computer” and open the context menu on the system drive. At the end of the list, click “Properties”, and in the window that appears, click the “Disk Cleanup” command. In the “Disk Cleanup” window, check the boxes next to the files that you want to delete - Recycle Bin files, temporary files from Temp folders, temporary Internet files, etc.
Then click “Clean up system files.”
If the system disk is not periodically cleaned, up to 5-6 GB can accumulate in the Temp folders over a long period of time. And the Windows Disk Cleanup service, as a rule, deletes only some of the files from these folders. Temp folders can be cleaned manually by completely deleting their contents.
What is the "Temp" folder for? Temporary files are stored there that Windows and various programs installed on the computer create for their work. Most of these files become unnecessary over time because they are not used in work.
Temp folders are hidden, and the easiest way to get to one of them is using standard Windows Explorer, or the popular Total Commander file manager, since most builds of this program have a pre-installed “Hidden Items” button in the toolbar. It displays all hidden files and folders on the system. Click this button and open the root folder of the system in Total Commander and find the “Temp” folder there:
You can open the “Temp” folder in the same path in standard Windows Explorer, but before that you also need to configure the display of hidden folders.
In Windows 7, click the Start button, then Control Panel, then Appearance and Personalization, then Folder Options. In Windows 8, you can get to the “Folder Options” section directly from the “Control Panel”.
In the “Folder Options” window that opens, immediately go to the “View” tab and check the “Show hidden folders, files and drives” option in the additional settings.
Then click "Apply" and "OK".
In the “Temp” folder, select all existing files and press “Shift + Delete” so that the files are completely deleted from the computer, bypassing the “Trash”.
But there is more than one “Temp” folder on the computer: in addition to the one located in the Windows root folder, another “Temp” folder can also be found in user files on the system drive:
C:\Users\Windows Account Name\AppData\Local\Temp.
You can follow this path in a file manager or Windows Explorer, but it is much easier to enter the command %TEMP% in the address bar of Explorer and press the Enter key.
Select all the files that are there and delete them.
Not all files from this “Temp” folder will be deleted, some of them may be currently used for the operation of the system and programs, so just skip them.
To increase the loading time of Internet pages, browsers, when accessing a server on the Internet, first check the cache - a place on the system disk specially allocated for storing previously visited web pages, pictures and other elements of Internet resources. And if there is a copy of this data in the cache, then the browser downloads it from the cache, and not again from the server.
To periodically receive updated data from servers, ideally the browser cache should automatically clear itself from time to time, but this is not always the case. Sometimes, after active Internet surfing, a fairly impressive amount of unnecessary data remains in the cache, and it must be periodically cleared manually. To do this, browser developers provide a special function to clear the cache manually.
In most browsers, this function can be accessed by entering the key combination “Ctrl + Shift + Delete”. However, you can separately clarify how to clear the cache of your particular browser, or use special programs for cleaning the system, which will be discussed below.
Clearing your browser cache will free up a certain amount of space on your system drive.
The software market today offers a huge number of programs designed for comprehensive cleaning of Windows OS. This includes cleaning the Recycle Bin, temporary system files, installed programs, and browser cache.
The most popular program of this kind is CCleaner. It is free, minimalistic, however, it offers the necessary functions to clean the operating system of unnecessary files and optimize its registry.
Among CCleaner's analogues there are also more functional solutions - for example, System Cleaner, Neo Utilities, System Optimize Expert, TuneUp Utilities and other programs.
You shouldn’t place too much hope on such a program plan. Like the Windows Disk Cleanup service, they can also remove only a portion of unnecessary files. Therefore, if the need to increase space on the system disk is urgent, it is better to additionally clean the “Temp” folders manually.
Hibernation mode is a low-power mode in which the system goes into a sleep-like mode, but all open files and running programs are saved on the system hard drive in a separate file. Hibernation mode is designed for laptops to extend battery life without recharging the battery. But Windows automatically creates a file to store data in hibernation mode no matter what computing device you use, and the file size is several gigabytes.
To see the hibernation file, with the display of hidden files and folders enabled, open the system drive in a file manager or Windows Explorer window. Find the “hiberfil” file with the “.sys” extension among the hidden ones.
If you are using a desktop PC and not a laptop, you generally do not need hibernation mode. And you can delete it to free up space on your system drive. And when working with a laptop and periodically using hibernation mode, you can transfer the “hiberfil” file to another non-system drive.
You won’t be able to get rid of the “hiberfil” file so easily with the usual “Delete” context menu command, since it is protected by the system. But it can be removed using the command line.
Hello all friends!
If you care about the fast operation of your computer, then at least every three months you need to carry out a global cleaning of the system from various types of garbage. If you don't do this, your computer will simply slow down.
After using your computer for a long time, a lot of garbage accumulates, getting rid of it can free up gigabytes of free space on your hard drive by clearing the disk of garbage in three steps. This article is for beginners. Use it and you will really notice the difference BEFORE and AFTER cleaning your hard drive. The most interesting thing is that we will get rid of the Temp folder. Learn more about it:
Cleaning the system drive “C” in Windows 7 is a fairly simple procedure, but before using the programs, let’s prepare our computer. To do this, we will use standard system tools. Let's go to " Start» —>» Computer"and we see our disks. Point the mouse at drive C and press the right mouse button. Go to properties and run disk cleanup.
The cleaning program will start, it will evaluate the volume, and prepare the files for deletion.
Attention! If you are cleaning the disk for the first time, this may take a long time, up to several hours. Therefore, for especially “Neglected Patients” it is necessary to perform cleaning at night.
We check all the boxes before cleaning. Look in the trash, maybe you still have the files you need there.
Don't forget to go to the Advanced tab, where you can remove unnecessary programs and restore points. 
Click " OK"—> « Delete files» unnecessary garbage has been removed. The preparation of the system is completed, let's move on to the “heavy artillery” - we will use a powerful program to remove residual debris.
We continue cleaning. And a cool program called CCleaner will help us with this. This is the most popular utility among garbage cleaners. Download the portable (portable version does not require installation) program. The download will start automatically. Launch the program, click " Analyze" (Analysis), after scanning " Run Cleaner“(Cleaning). The program language changes like this: Options» —> « Settings» —> « Language» —> « Russian«.
You can also clean the registry, I think you’ll figure it out - the interface couldn’t be simpler. Let's move on to the next step.
The program is called FreeSpacer and install it on your computer. I'll say a few words about this wonderful program.
I have been using FreeSpacer for a very long time, what I like about it is that it has no complicated settings, it all comes down to two actions: search and delete, it is distributed free of charge and does not delete anything unnecessary. I also want to say about its effectiveness; it removed my friend’s 20 gigs of garbage and that's not the limit.
Launch the program and click " Search.» There should be no other programs or background applications running on the system.
When working with a computer, a certain number of unnecessary files gradually accumulate on the disks. Many programs create temporary files, but not all delete them when they are finished. Of course, only you can say about most files whether they are needed or not, but during its operation, the Windows system itself creates many files that waste space on the disk. Program Disk Cleanup(Disk Cleanup), also belonging to the group of utility programs, is used to remove unnecessary files from the disk. The disk cleanup program can be launched either automatically or manually. Automatic startup occurs when there is less free space on the disk than the limit set in the system. In this case, a dialog appears warning about this (Fig. 9.3). Please note that the less free space remains on the disk, the more often this dialog will appear.
Figure 9.3.
To run disk cleanup where there is little space left, click the button Disk Cleanup(Disk Cleanup) of this dialog. If you want to run the cleaning program yourself, then open the folder My computer(My Computer) in the Windows main menu. Right-click on the icon representing the disk you want to clean up and select the command from the secondary menu Properties(Options). In the dialog that appears, click on the shortcut Are common(General) to select the desired tab. On this tab, click the button Disk Cleanup(Disk Cleanup) to launch the appropriate program. The cleanup program searches the specified drive for files that can be deleted automatically. After viewing the disc, a dialog appears on the screen showing the results of this check (Fig. 9.4). The list in the center of the dialog shows groups of files that can be deleted and the disk space they occupy.
Figure 9.4.
While Windows is running, many files are created on the disk that are created for temporary purposes. When there is a lot of disk space, the number of these files does not matter much. When disk space runs out, deleting unnecessary files can help solve the problem. When viewing a disk, several groups of files are considered to be deleted. First of all, this is the contents of the folder Basket(Recycle Bin), which is where the files you delete go, since most of the files that go into it are intended for final destruction. Next comes the folder Temporary Internet Files(Temporary Internet files), containing files that appeared on the computer while using the Internet. These files are needed for quickly re-viewing Web pages that you have already visited, and nothing bad will happen if they are deleted.
Many programs, during their operation, create temporary files to store some parts of the information being processed. Windows provides a special folder for such files. Sometimes these files are not destroyed when the programs that used them finish running. To delete such files, a special group is provided. Several other groups of files are also offered for cleaning. To specify the deletion of groups of files, you should select the appropriate dialog boxes. When you click the OK button of the dialog, the cleaning process will begin. When asked whether you really want to delete files, you should answer in the affirmative by clicking the Yes button in the dialog that opens. A dialog will appear with a progress indicator that illustrates the cleaning process (Fig. 9.5).
Figure 9.5.
Sometimes deleting unnecessary files does not solve the problem of low disk space. In this case, the system may prompt you to remove some Windows components or installed programs. You can do the same thing yourself if you select the tab Additionally(More Options) dialog Disk Cleanup(Disk Cleanup) (Fig. 9.6).
Figure 9.6.
This tab offers you three options for increasing free disk space by deleting some of the files used by the Windows system. The first group of controls allows you to remove some Windows components that you are not currently using. To remove some Windows components, click Clear(Clean up). The first Windows Component Wizard dialog appears. This dialog presents a list of system components that you can remove. Selecting a list item displays a comment at the bottom of the dialog about what the selected component is, and the disk space occupied by this component is also displayed. To mark a component for removal, check the box next to the corresponding list item. The second group makes it possible to remove previously installed programs. Button press Clear(Clean up) in this group of controls will cause a dialog to appear Installing/removing programs(Add/Remove Programs. This dialog also displays currently installed programs in the form of a list. By selecting a program to remove, you will see the disk space it occupies. To remove a program, click the button Delete(Delete). The Uninstall Program Wizard will launch. You can read in detail about installing and removing Windows components, as well as uninstalling installed programs, in the corresponding chapter of this book.
