How to clean C drive?

Question

I am using windows 7. I never installed any software to C drive. However some something just keeps eating C drive without my permission. How can I clean my C drive without re-installing my OS? Also, I believe there are lots of junks which are not deleted when I uninstalled the programs. I tried CCleaner but it cannot find them. Is there a way to find them?

You might also want to right click on drive, then properties, then "Disk Cleanup..." to see if Windows sees some potential to cleanup files. — Werner Henze, Jul 18 '13 at 08:17
I've edited your post. Please avoid including irrelevant information and don't ask two questions at once. By the way, the books question was a [shopping question](http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/11/qa-is-hard-lets-go-shopping/) and would be closed as such. — gronostaj, Jul 20 '13 at 09:05
Related: [How can I visualize the file system usage on Windows?](http://superuser.com/questions/8248/how-can-i-visualize-the-file-system-usage-on-windows) — gronostaj, Jul 20 '13 at 09:07
If something "keeps eating" your C drive, you should at least be able to identify the files that are taking up the space. (But keep in mind that the OS will put all sorts of stuff on the C drive. How much space is being "eaten"?) — Daniel R Hicks, Jul 20 '13 at 11:10

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 18 '13 at 03:21

6

Run a utility like WinDirStat and find out what is eating up your drive.

answered Jul 18 '13 at 03:21

Scandalist

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One of the safest. I use it all the time – Scandalist Jul 18 '13 at 03:25
Yes, it is open source project. Very nice one! Hope I can vote you up, but I need at least 15 rep to do that. – Alex Jul 18 '13 at 03:44
No, worries. Did you figure out what was taking up space? – Scandalist Jul 18 '13 at 03:47
Yes, it works like charm. I found a 20 gigabyte backup folder. WinDirStat is really great, but is there a way to find other junks which do not cost much disk space? – Alex Jul 20 '13 at 06:02

Danatela · Answer 2 · 2013-07-18T05:40:55.633

Well, Visual Studio installs it's files into %APPDATA% or %LOCALAPPDATA% folders and into C:\ProgramData folder in Windows Vista/7/8. Things like help always come there. So check your registry (especially check HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders and other entries like Explorer\Shell Folders) and decide to move these folders to another drive.

You can make this by two paths:

change value of registry variable (advantage is that it is available in any Windows version)
or move the folder and create link (unix way, advantage is that you can move only specific folder and retain others).

How to clean C drive?

2 Answers2