Why does my disk space keep getting reduced more than I think it should?

Question

I have been having problems with my hard disk space getting filled up more than I think it should, and faster too.

I have Windows 7 with Service Pack 1.

I have two drives, C: and D:. Sometimes C: free space keeps going down unreasonably fast. The only genuine reason why I think it may be going down, is due to my opening too many Chrome tabs. But I realized that a while ago, and have been doing the following two things to hopefully reduce the effect of Chrome tabs on disk space: 1) closing Chrome tabs when done reading them, and 2) rebooting my PC now and then (I try to do it once at least every two days if not every day), so I think the effect of that should be mitigated now. I also run the Disk Cleanup tool often, when I get a low disk space warning from Windows, and even if I do not. Sometimes the disk space in C: seems to get a lot lower, and at the same time the disk space on D: gets higher. Sometimes only the disk space on C: gets lower. I do have an antimalware software installed on my PC (McAfee Antivirus Plus) and update it regularly and run quick scans almost daily and a full scan usually weekly. Apart from the earlier high number of Chrome tabs, I do not think there is any genuine reason (caused by me or any software that I run) for my disk space to keep on getting reduced like this. I don't do any heavy data processing, I don't watch videos much, I mainly use my PC for programming and writing (about programming) and browsing the Web.

Another thing I noticed today: I went into Control Panel -> User Accounts -> Configure advanced user profile properties, for the first time today, and saw that my main user account - called user, i.e. C:\Users\user, seems to be using as much as 8.12 GB of space. Why can this happen? And is there a way to reduce the space it uses? When I open C:\Users in Windows Explorer and then click on the folder called user under it, and do Alt+Enter to check its properties, it shows that it uses over 9 GB of space.

Any suggestions I can try to prevent this disk space reduction from happening? It has been happening for months now, and is a big issue - slows down my work, since I have to frequently deal with it. I had been uninstalling software packages from C: via either Control Panel -> Programs and Features, or sometimes via Revo Uninstaller. But I am running out of packages to install. I have also moved a lot of MB (sometimes GB) worth of data (mainly downloads of software, ebooks, collected over a few years - too much, I know) from C: to D:, but even after doing that multiple times, the space on C: gets full again.

I have over 30 GB of free space on D: at present, but under 1 GB of space on C:, and often, without my doing anything on C:, it goes down to even a few 10s of MB, then I get a warning from Windows that my disk space is low.

Solution

Windows 7 has a nasty problem of eating up all disk space in the following two folders:

• C:\Windows\Logs\CBS

• C:\Windows\Temp

You can delete the contents of both directories without impact. Some files will not be able to be deleted because they are in use. You can skip those, and should not try to delete them.

Additionally, run a Windows Disk Cleanup:

• Open My Computer
• Right-Click the drive in question
• Click Properties
• Then choose "Disk Cleanup" under the "General" tab.
• You should additionally click the option to "Clean up system files" which will reveal several more areas that disk cleanup can clean.

After that, if you are still having disk space issues use WinDirStat (be sure to right-click and "Run As Administrator") to get a nice graphical representation of where all the space is used on your drive. Using that information you can decide what to do with the rest of the data that needs to be cleaned up. I would focus on items within your user profile only and on folders identified as "temp" folders.

One last suggestion, if necessary, you could also relocate your pagefile to the drive with more free space.

Comments

[Appleoddity]

Your question seems to indicate you feel the space is taken up in your user profile. But, you didn't provide any supporting information.

[Mydnyght Ryder]

@Appleoddity: But it did provide it, in my original post, in paragraph 4 - it may be that I added that para during an edit I did, and you may have replied before seeing the edit, if so, sorry for the confusion.

[Mydnyght Ryder]

s/it did provide it/I did provide it/ (in previous comment).

[Ramhound]

You have used a program to visualize how your space is being used as an Administrator. A screenshot of that information would be more helpful then paragraphs of potentially unnecessary text.

[Ramhound]

Possible duplicate of How can I visualize the file system usage on Windows?

[Ramhound]

@MydnyghtRyder You are right, I didn’t read the 15+ comments, way too chatty. You didn’t accept an answer, so I wasn’t sure, if the answer resolved your problem or not. I submitted a comment a whole 4 minutes after the problem was solved. Being nice to all users is important.

[Mydnyght Ryder]

I am not clear on how to accept an answer (maybe cannot due to low rep on this id), although I have done it earlier on some other StackExchange site. I find the SE UI too busy / complex (talk about chatty :). When are people going to realize that the thread and replies readability issue was solved way back in the Usenet days, by a simple flat format with minimal quoting of previous comment, ha ha. Not sure if telling people who are trying to give a full description of the problem up front (so as to help potential answerers), that it is too much text, is nice or useful either.

[Mydnyght Ryder]

Found this, which gives some info about the issue: computerworld.com/article/3112358/microsoft-windows/…

[Appleoddity]

@MydnyghtRyder Every Windows system has the \windows\temp folder. You need to make sure you are showing hidden files and folders. There is only one file usually in use in \windows\logs\cbs and that is cbs.log. The other _persist files are usually not in use and sufficient for clearing up alot of free space. If you need to delete the cbs.log you will need to open task manager and kill the "Trusted Installer" process then quickly delete the cbs.log file. Moving page file should be last resort.

[Mydnyght Ryder]

Thanks again. I did a DIR c:\windows\temp/a and it still does not show it. Also the menus in the "Showing hidden files" link you gave, does not match exactly with my Windows 7. No option called Appearance and Personalization. Is one called just Personalization, but does not have Folder options under it.

[Mydnyght Ryder]

dir c:\windows\temp /a Volume in drive C has no label. Volume Serial Number is 0857-739D Directory of c:\windows\temp File Not Found

[Mydnyght Ryder]

Tried deleting the files in C:\Windows\Logs\CBS multiple times, nothing happens. As said, there is 13 GB used by them, so deleting them would solve my issue (not sure if permanently, but still helpful). Does Windows have any single-user mode option, maybe in that mode they may get deleted?

[Mydnyght Ryder]

I have also tried the Disk Cleanup option many times, before posting this question. Sometimes it helps, more so when I say to clean up system files, but every time the issue comes back. Also system files cleanup only seems to help after I have installed Windows updates, likely it gets some space by deleting old ones. Didn't help much recently, only saved a few MB.

[Appleoddity]

@MydnyghtRyder You'll be better off using WinDirStat. If you find an unusually large folder, you can just right-click it and open the folder within WinDirStat. I don't know what to say about the CBS directory. I've done this dozens of times. You should be trying to use File Explorer. You might get a prompt that you need to allow changes to the folder, but there is nothing in there that can't be deleted except for cbs.log which can be deleted immediately after killing TrustedInstaller in task manager.

[Mydnyght Ryder]

Yes, I had tried deleting the CBS dir files via the DEL command from DOS prompt. Did as you said now, used Windows Explorer. Deleted all files except cbs.log and it worked after asking me to do it as Administrator. Instantly have 13 GB free now. Thanks very much. Will also use WinDirStat. Only hope this does not happen all the time, will of course do this again if it does. Wonder if there is a way to run commands as Admin from the DOS prompt. Will check.

[Mydnyght Ryder]

cbs.log itself is only about 150 MB, so will not delete it for now.

[Ramhound]

Take your discussion to a chat room.

[Ramhound]

CCleaner should be considered malicious software due to Piriform‘s unacceptable quality control problem. Previous versions of CCleaner contains malware, published by them, doesnt matter the malware was included by mistake

[computercarguy]

@Ramhound, by that logic, any OS could be considered malware, due to their security flaws.

[Ramhound]

Well, I used to love their software, but if your installer literally installs malware ever you don’t get a second chance.