How can I make some space on my hard drive?

[traceymbelle]

At the moment I only have 136MB free space of 74.5GB on my c drive. I have taken stuff off, but am at a loss now as to what else I can get rid of.
I have 2 files called Program files but one has (x86) after it,
I was hoping you might be able to tell me what to do with all this as I'm at a loss, and cant really afford to get more space put in just yet.

Thanks in advance

Tracey
xx

[jojo]

If you simply cannot afford a bigger HD at this time, (same boat myself!), Your options are these:

Removing services you don't use, especially in Skype, Office and such. This involves uninstall and reinstall, using Custom Install and not taking things you don't need. Office especially hase spread sheets, graphics and numerous dictionaries which you may not use.

Transfer files you want to keep to CD/DVD or online storage. Photos, Music. Letters and such.

One online storage which I use is Dropbox. 5Gb free, after that you pay. dropbox.com

Some OS have a compacting service built in. But this is generally automatic.

There are programs which will remove some Micro$soft services you don't use. These mean unstalling the OS and reinstalling. After XP, you are restricted to 5 such reinstalls.

The one I use, for XP is nlite. But later OS have different versions.

It's difficult to tell what you need or don't from the file lists you have given. Though I don't want you to post anything more detailed.

[vikingken]

An 80 GB C:/ drive was plenty for XP, but not much good for Windows 7. If you upgraded XP you might have a folder called Windows Old taking up a lot of space. Open Computer, right click on C:/ and select Properties. Click on Disk Cleanup and delete everything there, thats where Windows Old will be if its there. There could be old Office files there as well which you dont need anymore. There is quite a bit of crap that gets stored in that folder. Its my guess you did upgrade your system, I dont  think you would have bought a Windows 7 computer with a hard drive that small. If you did, they ripped you off. 

You have got a 64 bit system and your 64 bit programs are stored in Program Files. Most of your programs are 32 bit and they are stored in Program Files X 86. You need to uninstall everything you dont use in Uninstall Programs, in the normal way. After uninstalling check in the Program Files and delete the uninstalled program folders if they have been left. Then install C Cleaner, run it to get rid of all the crap that has been left. Get rid of them toolbars; they dont take up a lot of room, but they might be storing a lot of crap you dont need. If they are gone C Cleaner will get rid of all their crap.

You have a D:/ drive on the same disk as C:/, you could shrink it and expand C:/. I can tell you how to do that, if you think you can. 

Theres not a lot else I can tell you to do, except get a bigger drive as soon as you can.

[vikingken]

Something I forgot to mention; empty all your folders, Pictures, Music and Videos to your external drive. Dont store anything on the C:/ drive for any length of time. With XP you could move them folders to the Data drive, but with Windows 7 / 8 you cant.  

[traceymbelle]

Jo Jo and Ken, thank you both so much for your replies, I really appreciated you taking the time to help me. I have taken all the junk off and also saved all the photos(my work portfolios etc) and saved them externally. I cant believe I didn't think of that before! D'oh senior moment!!! lol.
My birthday tomorrow, and hubby has promised me a new laptop in the next couple of months, so you never know I might be back asking for recommendations, as yes, I did get burned buying this old dinosaur, I bought it with windows 7 on it, but in my defence it was an impulse buy!!
Anyway, thanks again
Best wishes
Tracey

[vikingken]

Your welcome Tracey, anytime I can help I will. As for laptop recomendations, I dunno. Look for the best specs you can afford, thats about all I can say.

[jojo]

And have a wonderful Birthday.

[traceymbelle]