C drive running out of space resolve this without formatting the C: drive.

Question

Hi every one,
                    i am having window xp pro sp3 running machine with 2GB of RAM, 150GB Hdd, C drive 30GB, D drive 60GB, E drive 60GB. After installing all the application its show the remaining space as 14GB but day after day the space reduced now the space is only 238MB. i Checked the properties of the C drive by selecting all the folder and it show 17.3GB. i dont know what happen to the another 15GB.i cant find which is eating the C drive space. i cant defragment the C drive because to defragment i need 15% of disk space. my doubt is it may be of antivirus (i am using norton internet security). i installed .net2008, sql2008, office,Hpprinter softwares.how can i resolve this without formatting the C: drive.  Any assistance is appreciated

Answer 1

This is a little list I have also put together for our 2003 servers, should work fine for XP.
O   C:\WINDOWS\SoftwareDistribution\Download   Not confirmed, but suspect is ok.  (i have done this)
O   C:\Windows\Ie7updates  Not confirmed, but suspect is ok. (i have done this)
O    $Ntxxxxxxx$ files can be removed from the c:\windows directory NOT $hf_mig$
O    Attempt to move the page file
O    Run the disk clean up utility, and compress old files, and empty the recycle bins
O    The temp directories in the user profiles can be cleaned out, also check the desktops for downloaded apps for their setup file
These should be safe to remove, but probably a good idea to leave them alone as the updates may need them, be careful here.
C:\WINDOWS\Downloaded Installations
O    Ok to delete log files for Symantec
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Symantec\Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition\7.5\Logs
Configure History in SSC, right click server>all tasks>Antivirus>Configure history
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Symantec Shared\Reporting Agents\Win32\ReporterSvc.log
O    Quarantine files can be removed from Symantec, usually here;
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Symantec\Symantec AntiVirus Corporate Edition\7.5\Quarantine
O    Ok to delete zip files from Symantec, and actually all files in here
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Symantec\LiveUpdate\Downloads
O    IIS web logs ok to remove C:\WINDOWS\system32\LogFiles\W3SVC1
There is no option to do this automatically, this must be scripted
O    Log ok to remove C:\WINDOWS\system32\wbem\Logs\FrameWork.log
There is no option to do this automatically, this must be scripted
{}   If no drivers will be needed again, c:\windows\inf holds all the drivers for new hardware.  This has not been tested
{}   c:\windows\downloaded installations\  This folder holds the installers for some programs you download and install, for example, Tweak UI puts its installer in this folder, and so you can repair it or update its components later. Deleting this folder won’t harm any programs I have ever seen, but you should look inside this and see what you are deleting first.
{}    c:\windows\media\   These are the default windows sounds, if you don’t want them, deleting them wont hurt anything.
X   C:\windows\installer  can NOT be removed, although duplicate files ca be removed.  this is used for uninstalls and installs of new apps
X   C:\windows\assembly  can NOT be removed, this is a .NET folder, do not play with or compress
X   $hf_mig$  can NOT be removed, although it can be compressed.  this directory tells future updates what has already been doneblankmonkey