"Dusting off" windows

[ExalyThor]

Hi! How can I "dust off" my C partition of my hard drive? By that I mean removing leftover files and other things that installed without my permission etc. I don't have any problems in regards with space, it's just the fact that I want to keep my pc tidy. My antivirus has a feature like this but it's not pay and have it forever, it requires monthly payment. Any tips on programs which can clean my windows partition?

[vanished]

Well to start just use the built in Disk Cleanup utility

 

 

I'd recommend running it as admin (circled) so you make sure to get everything you can

 

You can also run something like space sniffer (http://www.uderzo.it/main_products/space_sniffer/) to scan your drives and give a visual representation of where all the space has gone (again, I'd recommend running as admin to get it all).  You may be surprised by the amount of space taken by certain system folders over time, such as:

• C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore, which you can clean up with something like this (https://github.com/lostindark/DriverStoreExplorer)
• C:\Windows\Installer, which you can delete without breaking anything at the moment, but if you do you may find things are broken further down the line when you try to update or remove certain programs so use at your own risk
• Various "root level" folders, like C:\AMD, C:\Intel, etc which often contain temporary installer files that were extracted for a driver install and never cleaned up
• Various things in C:\ProgramData, and %USERPROFILE%\AppData - you will have to use your judgment to know what to clean based on what programs you use and how
• A pagefile that's grown out of control.
• A hibernation file you maybe never use.  This can be disabled with powercfg.exe /hibernate off
• C:\Windows\LiveKernelReports - this sometimes fills up with dump files that can take quite a bit of space each and you will never need
• Your "Documents" folder of all things.  Some programs use it as a sort of temp location and throw all sorts of garbage in there over time, sometimes "hidden", sometimes not.

This list could be longer but there's so much it's hard to remember it all at once.  If you feel you can't properly get it all though, just reinstall.  This would also be my recommendation if you've been infested with "things that installed without my permission"

[Radium_Angel]

5 minutes ago, TheSponyX said:

How can I "dust off" my C partition

IIRC something like CCleaner will help in this regards

[homeap5]

18 minutes ago, TheSponyX said:

Hi! How can I "dust off" my C partition of my hard drive? By that I mean removing leftover files and other things that installed without my permission etc. I don't have any problems in regards with space, it's just the fact that I want to keep my pc tidy. My antivirus has a feature like this but it's not pay and have it forever, it requires monthly payment. Any tips on programs which can clean my windows partition?

Just leave it as is until you will be really out of space. THEN if you made cleanup, you'll really see difference.

You may use Autoruns if you want to check what programs runs/starts/set at startup to check things installed without your permission. Or RAPR if you want to remove old drivers (NVidia for example).

 

Don't waste of time for cleaning everything. It's not dust and in many times people who clean too much ends with broken system (because windows folder contains sooo many unnecessary files).

 

[ExalyThor]

14 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Well to start just use the built in Disk Cleanup utility

 

 

I'd recommend running it as admin (circled) so you make sure to get everything you can

 

You can also run something like space sniffer (http://www.uderzo.it/main_products/space_sniffer/) to scan your drives and give a visual representation of where all the space has gone (again, I'd recommend running as admin to get it all).  You may be surprised by the amount of space taken by certain system folders over time, such as:

• C:/Windows/System32/DriverStore, which you can clean up with something like this (https://github.com/lostindark/DriverStoreExplorer)
• C:\Windows\Installer, which you can delete without breaking anything at the moment, but if you do you may find things are broken further down the line when you try to update or remove certain programs.
• Various "root level" folders, like C:\AMD, C:\Intel, etc which often contain temporary installer files that were extracted for a driver install and never cleaned up
• Various things in C:\ProgramData, and %USERPROFILE%\AppData - you will have to use your judgment to know what to clean based on what programs you use and how
• A pagefile that's grown out of control.
• A hibernation file you maybe never use.  This can be disabled with powercfg.exe /hibernate off
• C:\Windows\LiveKernelReports - this sometimes fills up with dump files that can take quite a bit of space each and you will never need
• Your "Documents" folder of all things.  Some programs use it as a sort of temp location and throw all sorts of garbage in there over time, sometimes "hidden", sometimes not.

This list could be longer but there's so much it's hard to remember it all at once.  If you feel you can't properly get it all though, just reinstall.  This would also be my recommendation if you've been infested with "things that installed without my permission"

Nah... It's a gaming pc. It just had some driver leftovers from both amd and nvidia, and a few broken afterburner versions. But thanks anyway. Those 13 GB came back just as they disappeared.

[homeap5]

2 hours ago, TheSponyX said:

Nah... It's a gaming pc. It just had some driver leftovers from both amd and nvidia, and a few broken afterburner versions. But thanks anyway. Those 13 GB came back just as they disappeared.

I wrote you program name for old drivers remove.

[paddy-stone]

You could always use a sandbox, then it'll only write changes you specifically tell it to. It won't help ypou "clean" your PC, but it might stop it getting cluttered in the first place.

Personally though, PCs these days are a lot more resilient, and we have more cheap space to use.. so it really shouldn't slow the PC down noticeably IMO unless you're installing a lot of junkware etc.... I only clean out stuff when I know I don't want/need some progs anymore, or things like cache/cookies and the like.. otherwise I just load on my personal disk image once a year or so, so it's like new again with the most popular progs etc I use already installed.