Is my large Windows folder slowing down my machine?

Question

I have a problem with my Windows installation running very slow and my Windows folder being too large. I thought that the problems are related.

• My Windows folder is 17.4 GB
• I have 1807 folders totalling 2.4 GB that are prefaced with a $.
• My System32 folder is 1.55 GB
• My Microsoft.NET folder is 654 MB – I don't know what if any programs I have that are using it.
• My Service Pack folder is 568 MB.
• The Software Distribution folder is 536 MB
• The ie8updates folder is 380 MB.

How can I reduce the size of these folders and could their size be why I am running do slow?

Answer 1

No, the windows folder size is not the cause of your problem.

And no, you can't reduce the windows folder without causing problems. Windows will increase its size if:

• you install windows related apps (ofice, net framework, other ms software)
• you install windows updates
• you install lots of programs that leave some components in the windows folder

The above cannot be fixed unless a format is done. You could remove some stuff you consider useless but there is an 100% chance you'll remove something that is required and will mess up your OS.

Check the following folders and see if they contain large ammounts of data (usually, it should be several megabytes in them but can be safely deleted):

%windir%\Temp
%localappdata%\Temp
C:\Users\Default\AppData\Local\Temp
%localappdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files
%localappdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer
%windir%\ServiceProfiles\LocalService\AppData\Local\Temp
%windir%\ServiceProfiles\NetworkService\AppData\Local\Temp
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Search\Data\Temp
%windir%\System32\DriverStore\Temp
%windir%\winsxs\Temp