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Ah, that's good to know! I might have a look around just out of curiosity. I've since learned that w...
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Yes, that would sort of fit that aspect - but you can also go from bits of woods to sticks if you ar...
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I'm definitely jealous! Mine disapeared except for one pathetic little flower. But the first daffodi...

Pre-Spring Cleaning - Windows 7

I've recently upgraded my trusty little computer with more RAM (from 4 to 8 GB), and I've thus lost some more space on my harddrive to the ever-present hiberfil.sys (which the system uses for hibernation mode, and which is roughly the same size as the RAM).

Unfortunately, this meant that my windows partition had become very, very full. As in just a few hundred MB of space left - which is not enough for practical purposes.

One solution would have been to disable hibernation mode, which allows you to get rid of the hiberfil.sys. (In case you want to do this, here are instructions on how to turn it off or on.) Since I'm using the sleep mode often, though, this was not a choice for me.

I'm using CCleaner regularly to throw out files that are not needed anymore, but the disk had gradually gotten fuller and fuller in spite of this. The likely culprit, since I'm also taking care to de-install programmes I don't use anymore, and keep as much data off the C: partition as possible? Windows itself.

So I did a little searching around, and found out that there is a (fairly hidden) option to remove older updates from the computer. Windows stores these (because it's not paranoia to keep everything, right?), but for a system that is running okay, this only makes very limited sense, and it can take up a lot of space. In my case, it was almost exactly 10 GB that got cleared!

And here's how you do it for Windows 7 or 8:


  • Press the Windows key and "R" - you will get a command line thingie.
  • Type "cleanmgr" and click the OK button.
  • Now select the drive that your Windows installation is on (it's usually C:) and press OK.
  • Scanning will happen, and once that's finished, you'll get to see a small window with cleaning options.
  • In that list, there should be a checkbox called "Windows Update Cleanup".
  • If it's not there, click the button "Clean up system files" below that checklist. Now there will be another scan, including the system files and update files.
  • Make sure that magical box is checked, and click "OK", then tell your computer that yes, you really want to remove those files, reallyreally. Now there will be some cleaning.
  • In case you don't see a heap of freed space right away, don't panic - but be prepared for some lenghty boot time the next time you reboot your machine, as the cleanup will actually happen then.
If you prefer longer instructions with more explanation, you can go here for the German instructions I used, or here for the English equivalent.

So now I have about 12 GB of free space again, finally. Hooray! Plus, added benefit from the long time it took my computer to boot this morning, my desk is a lot less messy, as I used the wait to sort through some old paperwork... a fitting task, right?

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Freitag, 29. März 2024

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