why does windows keep expanding in size?

[Mike Henley]

I installed windows in a 5Gb partition and i only install applications
on that drive. My Data is on another partition. Eventhough, windows
keeps expanding exponentially that almost everyday the amount of free
space available on that drive is shrinking.

I did a freesize scan and it showed...

1,775 MB WINDOWS
960 MB [Files]
....

and throughout the drive there were other [files] and temp folders

why does do that?
and what can i do to reduce to minimum necessary size and to stop it
from expanding like crazy?

[Kay Hangman]

There are a few things on the OS partition (the one with Windows on it) that
will dynamically expand/contract over time. The first thing is the swap file
(also known as the pagefile) which is, essentially, harddrive space used as
"virtual memory" over and above your RAM. It depends on your settings but
this can be anywhere from 1/2 your total RAM to three times your RAM.
However, you should probably leave the pagefile as it is, and not adjust it
too much as it is needed by programs and the OS for them to run properly.

Another thing that uses harddrive space are your System Restore points. You
can set a certain percentage of your drive to be used for these restore
points. For instance, I have an 80 GB harddrive and have approximately 12%
(max) of that allotted to restore points. Obviously that can take up a good
chunk, and you'll notice that each day your space will shrink a bit more
until you hit the max, since a restore point is created regularly until it's
maxed then it's a "first in, first out" routine which will delete the oldest
restore point and create a new one.

The third thing that will often use up a bit of space is if you use
hibernation features. If you hibernate your computer at all, the data stored
in RAM will be transferred to your harddrive upon hibernation as a single
file. While this file may change in size each time you hibernate, it doesn't
get deleted unless you turn off the hibernate feature.

Of course, there may be several other reasons for your drive space
shrinking, and you can run utilities that will assist you in cleaning out
things you don't need. However, I would suggest that putting WinXP on a 5 GB
partition is squeezing it in rather tight in the first place, just because
most OSs like having room to move. You might think of making it at least a
10 GB partition. Plenty of folks might say that you have good enough space
as it is, but I'd suggest that if it was good enough, you wouldn't need to
be worried over it.

"Mike Henley" > wrote in message
om...
> I installed windows in a 5Gb partition and i only install applications
> on that drive. My Data is on another partition. Eventhough, windows
> keeps expanding exponentially that almost everyday the amount of free
> space available on that drive is shrinking.
>
> I did a freesize scan and it showed...
>
> 1,775 MB WINDOWS
> 960 MB [Files]
> ...
>
> and throughout the drive there were other [files] and temp folders
>
> why does do that?
> and what can i do to reduce to minimum necessary size and to stop it
> from expanding like crazy?