These would be my first steps:
- Run System Restore to create a current Good Restore Point
- Run CCleaner
Next I would open up an elevated Command Prompt (right click Command Prompt icon and click Run as administrator). Check to see the size of your restore points and how much space is allocated for them by typing in the following:
vssadmin list shadowstorage
You will see something like:
For volume: (C:)\\?\Volume{45a08de4-b13e-11de-8bb3-806e6f6e6963}\
Shadow Copy Storage volume: (C:)\\?\Volume{45a08de4-b13e-11de-8bb3-806e6f6e6963}\
Used Shadow Copy Storage space: 18.996 GB (4%)
Allocated Shadow Copy Storage space: 19.313 GB (4%)
Maximum Shadow Copy Storage space: 27.94 GB (6%)
I would then open up Disk Cleanup (Accessories folder in the Start Menu, System Tools). Click the More Options tab then in the bottom of the page click on "Clean up..." this will present you with a popup of "Are you sure you want to remove all restore points except the last one?" or something like that. Click delete as long as your system is running fine other than having problems with space and slowness.
Now I would change the amount of space used by System Restore (back to the Command Prompt).
You should use the following command:
vssadmin resize shadowstorage /on=[drive letter]: /For=[drive letter]: /Maxsize=[maximum size]
Example:
C:\Users\yourname>vssadmin resize shadowstorage /for=c: /on=c: /maxsize=5gb
The result for above example will display:
C:\Users\yourname>vssadmin resize shadowstorage /for=c: /on=c: /maxsize=5gb
vssadmin 1.1 - Volume Shadow Copy Service administrative command-line tool
(C) Copyright 2001-2005 Microsoft Corp.
Successfully resized the shadow copy storage association
What is important is that the size is large enough to retain a few restore points, say five days worth.
You may also consider checking on your pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys sizes. Do you use hibernation? If not turn it off. Is the page file size the correct size? The same size as memory or 1.5 times the memory size?
I think this along with the other posts should get your system managed a bit better.