The c-drive in Windows 10 is too large upto 140 GB. How to detect which is taking more storage space and how to reduce it?

Question

I had recently upgraded to Windows 10 and noticed that the C-drive is almost up to 140GB of the whole 145GB drive. I have Visual Studio, Sql server, Netbeans and Android Studio. Other than these I don't even have Games running on my System and have not installed anything for quite a while. So, I understand that something is taking up too much space. How do I detect the source and safely remove it... A step by Step guide is much appreciated

Solution 1

As per John Keats answer, I first installed WinDirStat and found out the major problem was in the Installer folder. Then I followed this link https://superuser.com/a/1050442/631619 and installed Patch Cleaner. It freed upto 30 GB of Memory for me.

But still there was an Unknown Folder which took upto 20GB. So then I installed TreeSize and ran the program as Administrator. The culprit I found was System Recovery folder. So I deleted my Restore points. Still there was no change. Since I use a Dell Laptop, the Dell Backup and Recovery was taking up so much space and kept on increasing.

As I desperately needed to free up some space I entirely uninstalled Dell Backup and Recovery software. Along with it all 15GB of Back up Memory freed up(Not recommended to uninstall since this is not the proper way and may face consequences in the future.)

I still don't know if uninstalling Dell software as well as deleting Restore points was right or not.But I used it as a temporary fix. Will update the answer if I find a permanent fix.

P.S : Also do a disk cleanup to clear the files from Old Windows edition due up-gradation process (Mostly it gets deleted after some period of time after upgrading)

Solution 2

Try TreeSize or WinDirStat. Also see disk cleanup in admin mode, there might still be system and installation files from your pre-upgrade state.

Comments

[100rabh]

superuser.com/questions/8248/…

[w32sh]

Run Disk Cleanup (as Administrator) cleanmgr.exe and see how much disk space it can free up.

[DavidPostill]

Please read the question again carefully. Your answer does not answer the original question "How do I detect the source"

[AfzOne]

have you tried what I told you to do? I guess no.

[AfzOne]

you can check each file once it gets populated by the system.