Ive lost 11.5GB

brodev

Marty_J wrote: »

If you right-click on the C drive and go to properties and then disk cleanup, are there any enormous files there?

Basically none at all

warrenpeace

Take John Gray's advice. Treesize is an excellent program for checking disk usage, it tells you exactly how much space is being taken up and where. It should hopefully tell you where the problem is. Also, as mentioned earlier, it could be due to System Restore. SR can use a lot of space if it has made loads of restore points recently. You can delete all but the most recent restore point by going into the Disk Cleanup utility and to the tab at the top that says 'More Options' (Vista) and clicking the clean up button under 'System Restore and Shadow Copies'.

brodev

John_Gray wrote: »

Try downloading and running TreeSize Free.
Tells you lots about disk space usage.
Only takes a couple of minutes for an entire hard disk.

I think I have found the missing files
They are in a folder called Installer that doesn't show on windows explorer but treesize shows it.
They all seem to be update patches that cannot be installed for various reasons

John_Gray

There is a lot of discussion about whether or not you can remove, or move, the Windows\Installer folder - for example here. Also have a look at the results from Googling "remove installer folder" or some such similar search.

warrenpeace

Yeah the Installer folder is a toughie. However, you should be able to filter through it and discover which files belong to what programs and if there are any files belonging to old programs that you no longer have installed you should be able to delete them. But do so at your own discretion, I'm not advising you to do so as I don't know enough about that particular folder to be giving out proper advice and its potentially dangerous to your computer.

warrenpeace

Also, found this for you

http://www.theexperienceblog.com/2009/05/16/how-to-clean-out-windowsinstaller-folder-correctly/

But again, use your own discretion.

brodev

I have downloaded and run msizap.exe This has cleaned out the installer file and closed it. I have regained 11.5GB. Another thing I noticed but it did not fix was that my in my windows folder is a microsoft.net folder sub folder "framework" containing 4.5 GB This is full of ShadowXXXX files of 8.2MB. I shall look for a way of removing them unless anybody knows better? Many thanks to all for their help.