Reducing the size of your Windows 7 install

I just found this command, which cleans up the files kept around in case you want to roll back your service pack update. Run it from a command prompt started as administrator (ie hit start, type cmd, right click on command prompt, choose "run as administrator")

dism /online /cleanup-image /spsuperseded

There's also the disk cleanup tool, which is you right click on your drive, choose properties, then choose disk cleanup.

Turning off hibernate if you don't use it saves a heap of disk space. You can move the swap file to another disk too.

Does anyone have any other tips to save disk space under Windows 7?

With HDD prices going down and sizes going up, why do you need to shave off space like back in the Windows 95 days?

SSDs are still a bit expensive, and it takes up space when I do backups. Why keep files you don't need?

Thanks for posting this Tim.

tim wrote in post #14654321
Does anyone have any other tips to save disk space under Windows 7?

Click Start, type Windows features on or off and hit Enter, and the Windows Features dialogue box will be displayed. Once it's open, you can turn all kinds of features off - this may free up some space. I doubt you need your games, for example.

I don't think turning services off saves space, just a little processing time.

tim wrote in post #14659381
I don't think turning services off saves space, just a little processing time.

If I remember correctly, a similar feature in XP actually removes the stuff.

• Turn on Hibernate and you'll recover space equal to the amount of installed RAM
  
  
• Since I make a daily mirror of my system drive I have no need for System Restore. You can turn it off entirely by going to Control Panel > System and Security > System > System Protection, click on the Configure button and move the disk usage slider to 0%.
  
  
• Alternatively, click the Delete button to remove existing System Restore files but this does not turn off System Restore. (Most people would be surprised by how much space the recover the first time doing this).
  
  
• Open Windows Explorer and type %TEMP% in the menu bar to go to the Temp folder. You can safely delete everything in the Temp folder except the FXSAPIDebugLogFile.txt file.
  
  
• If you use the Transfer to Photoshop function in Digital Photo Pro, go to C:\Users\[Username]\AppData\Roaming\Canon​\Genzo\PStemp and delete the TIFF files that accumulate there.
  

Remove installed Windows features like "Tablet PC Componets", XPS Services/Viewer, Gadget Platform etc...

Other Windows 7 tweaks - click for tweaks

I have used this guide for a couple of installs, saves a bunch of room and they both run great. I think my last Win 7 install was in the 15-20 GB range. 16 comes to mind but I'm not 100% sure.

http://www.overclock.n​et …ation-guide-for-ssds-hdds

tim wrote in post #14654321
I just found this command, which cleans up the files kept around in case you want to roll back your service pack update. Run it from a command prompt started as administrator (ie hit start, type cmd, right click on command prompt, choose "run as administrator")

dism /online /cleanup-image /spsuperseded

There's also the disk cleanup tool, which is you right click on your drive, choose properties, then choose disk cleanup.

Turning off hibernate if you don't use it saves a heap of disk space. You can move the swap file to another disk too.

Does anyone have any other tips to save disk space under Windows 7?

This command actually removes the Wndows 7 Service Pack 1 backup files and should return 1.5-3GB of space. Naturally it only works if you have SP1 installed. You will not be able to remove SP1 after, but this shouldn't be a big problem.

Turning off hibernation (powercfg -h off) helps, as well as turning off System Restore.

I use CCleaner to tweak and clean up most everything including removing redundant restore points.