All the Windows updating settings are available from
Start ⇒ Control Panel ⇒ System & Security ⇒ Windows Update
Click on Change parameters to select how and when Windows should be updated and select:
Start ⇒ All programs ⇒ Dell ⇒ Dell Client System Update or Dell Command Update
C:
disk and select PropertiesNote: temporary files created by Windows (attachments opened when clicking in Thunderbird, etc…)
C:\Users\jypeter\AppData\Local\Temp
Go to Tools ⇒ Options ⇒ Advanced ⇒ Network and click on Clear Now
Go to Start ⇒ Configuration Panel ⇒ Network and Internet ⇒ Internet Options ⇒ General ⇒ Navigation history ⇒ Delete and then select what you want to remove
If you are on a desktop and you don't use the hibernation, you can gain a few Gb on the C:
partition by removing the hibernation file. See the appropriate tech note.
Use with caution, only if you know what you are doing! You will need to use the Administrator/adminuser account
An easy way to determine the space used by the Window directories is to run a Cygwin shell as an administrator and execute:
du -sh /cygdrive/c/Windows/* | sort -rh
The hidden C:\Windows\Installer
directory can easily grow to more than 10 Gb, because Windows uses it for storing files it needs at installation/update/removal time. Unfortunately, some files that could be removed when they are not need anymore (orphan files) stay in this directory.
You can use the PatchCleaner utility to (re)move these orphan files. Rather than removing those files, you should move them to a disk partition other than C:\
(e.g. <some_disk>:\Scratch\<your_login>\PatchCleanerMovedInstallerFiles
) and free a few Gb of disk space on C:\
. More details...
in some cases, the C:\Windows\Logs\CBS
directory may grow to several Gb, due to some log files rotation and compression problem. In that case, remove everything (that you can), except the latest file, CBS.log
, and remove what you can in C:\Windows\Temp
It seems that Windows may need all the files in this directory. Don't touch it…
Use with caution, only if you know what you are doing! You will need to use the Administrator/adminuser account
Some programs may install start up services that you don't really need. Disabling these services may free some memory and decrease a bit the CPU usage…