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I have a 120GB SSD with basically only the system (Win7) installed on it and yet I'm having really hard time maintaining enough free space to install one game and leave the recommended 20% of space free. I have already:

  • disabled hibernation
  • disabled file content indexing
  • junction linked all the libraries to the HDD, redirected all the caches to the HDD (Spotify, Apple etc.)

I also have zero system restore files and I cleaned up the drive using the built-in cleanup tool.

Yet, I still have a total of 64GB occupied by the Windows [38.6GB], ProgramData [5.8GB], Users [5.4GB] and Program Files (x86 and the regular one) [10.8 and 3.9GB] folders which leaves me with ~30GB if I want to maintain the 20% of free space. What else can I do to conserve some space? All the tips I find online are either the ones I've already done or giving very little gain in terms of free space.

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  • Have you emptied the recycle bin?
    – End Anti-Semitic Hate
    Apr 16, 2015 at 20:13
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    A Windows folder that big is not normal. Use WinDirStat to find out what’s going on.
    – Daniel B
    Apr 16, 2015 at 20:40
  • @RockPaperLizard - yes, sure did :)
    – Straightfw
    Apr 16, 2015 at 22:48
  • @DanielB - what exactly should I look for? I've already checked it through TreeSize but I don't really know what abnormalities I should try to pinpoint. I used WinDirStat as well just now but the visualisation doesn't help much when I don't know what is potentially too large :( The top 3 biggest folders inside Windows are Installer (13.6GB), winsxs (10.6GB) and System32 (3.6GB).
    – Straightfw
    Apr 16, 2015 at 22:50
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    38.6GB for Windows is a LOT. I have a very mature system that was installed 4 years ago with Many programs and my Windows is only 21.6GB. 13.6GB for the installer file is very large. It should be 10GB smaller. Here are some procedures to reduce it ==> pagestart.com/windowsinstallerfolder.html The other files you mentioned look reasonable in size although a tad on the high side. It looks like you install and uninstall programs frequently.
    – whs
    Apr 17, 2015 at 3:24

3 Answers 3

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The Windows Installer folder is rarely used and doesn't benefit from residing on the SSD. Since yours is 13.6 GiB in size, consider moving it to another drive.

This should be just as easy as junction linking the libraries, as long as you remember that you need administrative privileges to remove a folder or create a junction in the Windows directory.

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  • Just to add to this rather laconic answer for anyone who needs the syntax, your steps are: (1) copy the contents of c:\windows\installer to your HDD (e.g. d:\windows\installer); (2) rd c:\windows\installer /s; (3) mklink /D c:\windows\installer d:\windows\installer
    – Shaul Behr
    Jan 2, 2019 at 11:05
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I would recommend doing a visual check with the spacesniffer portable tool (I have no affiliation, just love the program): http://www.uderzo.it/main_products/space_sniffer/

This should help you find specifically what folders and files are taking up the mentioned drive space, where you can then progress further.

I've used it both at home and across all the computers at my work to easily, quickly, and visually hunt down issues like this.

As well, the software has the added benefit of being entirely free and portable, so no install needed, and there aren't a bunch of ads on it like many other programs.

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    This doesn't really answer his question on how to conserve space.
    – Josh
    Apr 16, 2015 at 22:55
  • Given how the question was worded I would assume that he would know how to resolve the issue once the resulting scan has pinpointed the problem.
    – techjwalker
    Apr 21, 2015 at 17:37
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Most 3rd party disk "cleanup" utilities are not aware of the items within Windows own Disk Cleanup. Use it with confidence.

1: Right click on the drive in question and tap Properties. 2: When the drop down menu appears, click Disk Cleanup. 3: A progress bar will begin. Take no action yet, wait till a 2nd menu appears. 4: When a 2nd Disk Cleanup menu appears notice a button called Cleanup System Files. 5: Click that button and select the checkbox related to the items you want to clean up. If in doubt what the selection means, simply keep it unchecked. 6: This operation usually takes a very long time (an hour or more)-because it also cleans up the Win SXS folder which is a sort of "trash can". (Windows Disk Cleanup will sort thru this folder and clear out the unused entries. There may be thousands... A regular hard drive cleanup might take overnight because it is much slower than a SSD.. It's possible to reclaim several gigabytes of hard drive, and SSD space this way This is a safe way to reclaim SSD space. I have used it a lot and it always works reliably. Items like "previous operating systems", are safe to remove. They may occupy 3-6 GB of drive space. Things with an "old" tag are safe to remove.

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