Windows 7 Updates And Disk Space

[dburanich]

When my Windows 7 machine receives minor updates it appears that my drive ends up with more used disk space than before the updates. I have always presumed this was due to the old data being stored in temporary files. When a major update would come along it seems to take an extra amount of time but miraculously I end up more free disk space, sometimes as much as 3 gb. It is as if the update purges the old data from the previous updates. I have tried using CCleaner to purge the data without an update but it does not seem to find it. Is there another way to manually purge this data without waiting for a major update from Microsoft?

 

[Growltiger]

Have you run Microsoft Disk Clean-up, which is in Administrative Tools?
When you run it, select drive C:, then press the button that says "Clean up system files".
Then tick all the boxes and go ahead.

I would not personally trust programs like CCleaner, better to leave well alone.

And if you have to even think about a mere 3GB, you need a bigger disk. I don't buy anything smaller than 2TB drives now.

 

[Zeke Menuar]

Control Panel > Performance Information and Tools > Open Disk Cleanup > Select the Drive You Want to Cleanup

Click "OK"

Check all the temporary files and other junk you want deleted.

 

[dburanich]

Thanks Richard and Zeke.

I thought I had tried Microsoft Disk Cleanup before. I just didn't have the right boxes checked off. Once I checked Service Pack Backup Files it took quite some time to run but gave me an additional 11gb of free disk space.

I originally had plenty of disk space available. I just like to keep my drive as clean as possible and not have a lot of files that are not needed.