Safely deleting Restore Points and generally freeing up space on a full C drive

ShineOn7

• How can I delete restore Points safely and where do i find them?
• I've installed Folder Sizes but I still can't free up space as I'm worried I'll delete essential files. Has anyone got links they can reccommend to do it safely?

Example; there's 250Mb alone showing in some folder called Microsoft Photos.

Has anyone used Folder Sizes software that can reccommend what to delete and what to keep?

Cheers

Dravokivich

WinDirStat

Is the application I use to scan drives. It can present the results by largest directory.

This won't make recommendations on what to delete, but it will give you a clear view of where all the data is used.

Although, chances are you might have a lot of temp files knocking about? did you try removing temp internet files, or doing a disk cleanup?

ShineOn7

Dravokivich wrote: »

did you try removing temp internet files

Where are they?

Ta

Dravokivich

This might help:

https://medium.com/@win10tricks/how-to-delete-temporary-internet-files-windows-10-7e5d530950d6

smuggler.ie

Folder sizes is brilliant piece of soft . Not using WinDirStat, but believe does same
You can open folder in question from there by right click on header >>explore from folder or "dig in" by double click on it

Re what to delete/what not - different story, you need to know/research
DON'T if not familiar - you might render your system broke...

Restore points can be deleted from
Control Panel\System and Security\System >> System protection
or
in CMD type and hit Enter
sysdm.cpl
in properties window go to System protection tab Configure...

quick access to tepm directories:
in RUN type and hit Enter

temp - Windows temp directory
%temp% - user appdata temp directory


Another place on Win8,10 to look-in is C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\Download
Once you have Win updates installed and all work fine, you can safely delete this folder - it will be re-created on next update round...


anything you do - do not rush - consider backup you personal data first.

smuggler.ie

...also, hibernation file might grow as big as your RAM in size.

Unless you consciously using it, you can safely delete it, but be aware - laptops use it in instance if you working of the battery an it runs critically low.

https://www.nextofwindows.com/what-is-hiberfilsys-and-how-to-delete-in-windows-7-free-up-hard-drive-space

ShineOn7

smuggler.ie wrote: »

...also, hibernation file might grow as big as your RAM in size.

Unless you consciously using it, you can safely delete it, but be aware - laptops use it in instance if you working of the battery an it runs critically low.

https://www.nextofwindows.com/what-is-hiberfilsys-and-how-to-delete-in-windows-7-free-up-hard-drive-space

Can you explain the bit in bold please.

So it means when the "10% remaining" warning flashes up that it'll close down? But otherwise I can safely delete the Hibernation file?

smuggler.ie

ShineOn7 wrote: »

Can you explain the bit in bold please.

So it means when the "10% remaining" warning flashes up that it'll close down? But otherwise I can safely delete the Hibernation file?

you can adjust % in power options. 10% is default setting

You gain something at cost of other things.

If battery go low you get warning, once at critical - laptop goes to hibernation - saves you work onto hiberfil.sys file and hibernate. On power restore/charge - it will load from hiberfil.sys file.
If hibernation disabled(and file deleted), your device just shutdown at critical battery mark and you might/will loose any unsaved documents/work.

Providing your C:\ full and you can't get Win updates - disable hibernation, do updates, enable hibernation.

Deleting restore points will give back some space, but you wont be able to recover if some goes wrong on updates or soft install.

If you concerned about files that are ~250Mb - consider upgrading you system drive to much bigger size. Running disk to that degree of shortage does no good to your drive and puts you data integrity at risk

You should always have > than 10% free of total disk capacity