Out of disk space....

[w0aew]

...and dozens of security updates (among other system updates) in MS XP home edition, according to the "Add or Remove Programs" utility. Is it ok to remove earlier updates without making the whole house of cards collapse?

[PA5COR]

These early updates are already installed and ment for roll back if the system does not work properly after those updates, i regularly clean out that "lint" to keep the system lean and mean.
Do away with every program you installed and never use anymore, clean the registry with one of the free proggy's and remove browser history regularly.

[n2ize]

Sounds like it might be a good time to migrate to a larger drive. Just clone your present drive to a larger one and then resize the partition to the entire disk.

[W4GPL]

Download ccleaner... and wipe all of the excess cache and system backups, on many systems it can add up to many GB of space.

http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner

Edit: You can also consider turning off system restore for now.


Click Start.
Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
On the System Restore tab, check Turn off System Restore or Turn off System Restore on all drives.
If you do not see the System Restore tab, you are not logged on to Windows as an Administrator.
Click Apply.
When you see the confirmation message, click Yes.
Click OK.

[W4GPL]

And no, do NOT uninstall the updates.

[w0aew]

Download ccleaner... and wipe all of the excess cache and system backups, on many systems it can add up to many GB of space.

http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner

Edit: You can also consider turning off system restore for now.


Click Start.
Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
On the System Restore tab, check Turn off System Restore or Turn off System Restore on all drives.
If you do not see the System Restore tab, you are not logged on to Windows as an Administrator.
Click Apply.
When you see the confirmation message, click Yes.
Click OK.



Wow! That really did the trick. Thank you!

[KB3LAZ]

Sounds like it might be a good time to migrate to a larger drive. Just clone your present drive to a larger one and then resize the partition to the entire disk.

Yep. My wife kept running out of disk space because she has a smaller drive that had xp on it. An older drive, 20gb I think. Well we upgraded her pc as far as it would go, threw win7 on it, and put in a storage drive. Just an 80g we had laying around. I really do not want to spend any money on the system, would rather just get her something more up to day but the problem is that we will only be here another 5-6 months and I dont want to bring a desk top with me. So, for now it will have to do.

I had no clue how much more electronics cost in the EU, at least Spain. A laptop equivalent to mine is between 900-1200€. I paid $428 for my laptop. I figure this has a lot to do with the fact that Spain seems to be big on the eco CPU's with low wattage consumption. Finding a PC with a quad core is tough. No big deal, a dual core is fine. However, the thing is that most of them are E series AMD or Intel duo which puts them at a clock rate of about 1.4-1.8ghz. Also it seems that it is still very common to have 2g of ram here. Another thing is the internal GPU on laptops here, just behind the curve.

Sure, all decent for word processing or surfing but not so much for gaming. Now, my wife does not game like I do. Her system requirements are much lower than that of an actual gaming PC but higher than a multi media PC. Tough to find here.

Desktops are not too bad in cost here but they are not great either. The US has a very good range of "Value gaming systems".

It is not just PC's though. TV's are up there as well. Particularly if you consider the exchange rate of the Euro to the dollar. Kitchen appliances are outrageous as well. An apartment fridge that would cost 400-500$ in the US in 900-1300€ here.

I suppose this evens itself out as the cost of food and such is cheaper here.

Anyway, just making an observation while I remembered it.

[WØTKX]

Regular use of CCleaner works.

As does having a reasonably large drive and/or partition for the OS, using other drives and/or partitions for everything else.

[W4GPL]

I'm always amazed when I'm forced to look at someone's 'slow' Windows machine for them.. the very first thing I do is load up CCleaner, I've seen people have like 15GB of crap just stored for no good reason.

-Disable disable system restore as it's mostly useless
-CCleaner
-MalwareBytes & Windows Malware Dealie from M$
-UltraDefrag (http://ultradefrag.sourceforge.net) - Full Optimization

I then also make sure they have the latest Java & Flash and remove all old versions.

And then generally people who don't know any better think they have a brand new computer. I'm great at doing the most with the least.

I'm also suspect of most Windows anti virus programs, they seem ineffective; except at slowing your computer down.

[W4GPL]

I also usually turn off all the silly shadow effects.. just leave on font smoothing -- I don't let "Windows adjust settings automatically.." Since when has Windows ever made a good decision for you? :P

[NQ6U]

Since when has Windows ever made a good decision for you? :P

Since the time Windows 3.1 crashed and burned and decided I should switch to a Mac.

[W4GPL]

Since the time Windows 3.1 crashed and burned and decided I should switch to a Mac.I run Linux, but I still spend time fixing other people's computers now and again. As Windows has released more and more versions, I'm starting to lose my skills.