Why is XP eating up 7 gigs of my drive? Can I free up space?

I have an Acer Aspire One netbook that is only 7.5 gigs. It has a very tiny hard drive. So when I installed Windows XP pro onto it ... I *thought* it would only take up about 3 gigs not the WHOLE DRIVE. I only have 353 mb left on the drive now. I installed NOTHING but the OS and all the endless updates through window updater. I think maybe that is where I messed up. I'm not sure cuz I am not very informed about what kinds of files must be updated so I just update them all. But now I have a serious problem. I have no room to do anything on this netbook now and everything is SOOOO slow. Is there a way to free up some of this space or is XP pro always going to eat up this whole drive??

I appreciate any suggestions you may offer.

 

Find out what is taking up space >> WinDirStat

 

What SP level is your original XP? You are correct, XP should only take 3 gigs max, look for the $uninstall files and get rid of them. You'll have to show hidden files and unhide one other, they're close together, I just can't find the menu ATM.:-o

 

there's no room for me to download any utilities. Like NO ROOM. I can't believe it's eating the whole drive like this. I also have no idea how to find those files you suggested I delete. I'm not that schooled in this type of thing. I just follow directions pretty well and I learn quick enough.

 

sp 3

 

Ok so I found the $uninstall files in the windows folder and I deleted them.

Now can I delete some of those updates in the add/remove programs list? Such as these:

Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 Service Pack 2. Size : 208.00 MB
Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 2. Size : 185.00 MB
Microsoft .NET Framework 4 Client Profile. Size: 120.00 MB


or are these important things that I shouldn't be messing with?

 

How To Unhide A Folder Using Windows XP

 

ok that didn't free up hardly any space but thank you for the suggestioins

Is there anything else I can do?

should I re install xp ? But then I don't know what updates to ok or not ...it always says critical updates...

are there particular ones I should download and not check off the rest?

 

Did you clear the recycle bin? Maybe you have 2 OS's on there, see if you have a windows.old file. Since you installed XP SP3 you shouldn't have many $uninstall files. You can also reduce 'system restore' from where the slider is down to %5 but that won't give you much either. Look for the *.old file first.

 

Ok so I decided to just start over. I deleted the partition on the drive and created a new one consisting of the entire 7.5 drive and then I reformatted the drive and now I am installing windows xp into it now.

I don't know what else to do because even after I deleted all of those other files you suggested and changed some of the settings ... it still didn't even free up a gig. I know it's just a 7.5 gig but I didn't think it was unrealistic to expect to have about 2 gigs of free room left after installing windows. I am thinking that maybe somewhere in the updating process ...I maybe downloaded too many updates that maybe weren't necessary and are now eating up drive space. I don't know what I am doing when it comes to updates so I don't mess around with it and just click everything.

Once windows finishes it's initial installation I'm going to check how much hard drive space is left. BEFORE I update anything. And then maybe that will give me more info. I dunno.

Do I have to completely update it when it says there's critical updates available over and over and over? Like I feel there are way too many.

Or is it totally unrealistic for me to have 2 gigs of room after windows is installed?

Thanks for all your suggestions by the way... I truly appreciate it

 

Like I said, it shouldn't be more than 2 gigs IIRC, surely not more than 3 gigs. Do right click 'My Computer to verify XP SP3.

 

The only updates that you need are the Critical Updates.
There will not be as many as before, since many will be consolidated.
You should be Re-Booting after the installations and the prompts should disappear.
Since I have mine set to "Notify" rather than automatically download and install, I have noticed that sometimes
the Updates Notification will reappear After the updates have already been installed and the computer was rebooted.
Clicking on the notice and letting it attempt to download and install, gets rid of that.

Another thing you can do is Remove Windows components that you will not use.
Go to Add or Remove Programs in Control Panel and select Windows Components on the left panel.
Look at All of the individual items for each component in the list.
Be sure to click the Details button, unless it is dimmed out, so you can inspect and choose which
components you want.
This is not a Big space saver, but it does help.

You can also turn OFF Indexing for that drive:
My Computer -> C: -> Properties, uncheck "Allow indexing service..."

Be sure to check the System Restore Settings and reduce the amount of disk space allocated for that
to nearly the minimum amount allowed.

 

Ok yep it's verified service pack 3 and I have 4.75 GB left on the drive!!

But I haven't updated it yet.

 

Ok as of right now I am only updating the yellow critical updates that come up as a yellow shield in the task bar. Hopefully that won't eat up the drive again. Keeping fingers crossed. Thank you SO much for all your help and patience. It's greatly appreciated

I am truly truly hoping this works better this time. At least now I know it's CAPABLE of NOT eating up the whole drive *at first*

 

There is a total size at the bottom of the updates page and I really doubt it'll amount to much space. Good going so far.:major

 

Hello,
I was not able to respond yesterday but I am glad you are progressing on your install. I would recommend that you do not install anything related to .NET. Also, after you have done all of your updating of critical updates and things are running fine, you can delete them with this utility.

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_hotfix_backup.htm

I would also delete anything in the temp folders. These are located at

C:\windows\temp\
C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Temp

You can also use CCleaner to delete your internet temp files.

Finally, I would do a system defrag after everything is done. And, also reduce the size of your System Restore cache to 5 percent as augiedoggie suggested.

Good Luck.