Win 10 drive in red zone - how safely (re)move stuff

[elanaahova2]

I've just finished installing a very large mod order (Nolvus) on F: drive. OS drive (C:) is now in the red. Only OS there. Now C: is in red zone. Need to free up space. I keep recycle bin empty. Removed everything from desktop except shortcuts. Downloads folder kept empty (always), documents folder -nada.

Web search not help = confusing, contradictory, and inaccurate info. . How do I get non essential stuff off c:? Like maybe the extra restore points, or old windows updates, yada? Whatever... :) Thank you all.

[EyMiMayhem]

I've just finished installing a very large mod order (Nolvus) on F: drive. OS drive (C:) is now in the red. Only OS there. Now C: is in red zone. Need to free up space. I keep recycle bin empty. Removed everything from desktop except shortcuts. Downloads folder kept empty (always), documents folder -nada.

Web search not help = confusing, contradictory, and inaccurate info. . How do I get non essential stuff off c:? Like maybe the extra restore points, or old windows updates, yada? Whatever... :smile: Thank you all.

Possible a big temp folder.

hit win + r and type %localappdata% , hit enter and aim for AppData\Local\Temp. And remove the stuff inside the temp folder (and also the bin afterwards).

Maybe your temp is full, empty the folder can free up space.

 

You can also check c if u have an "windows old" folder (when upgraded to w10 from an older os).

 

Also worth a try to run "disk cleanup" on c. to remove old updates and thigns like that.

Other method the little tool "treesize" it can detect easily huge files and will show you where those are located.

But would start with the temp folder.

Edited February 5, 2021 by EyMiMayhem

[HadToRegister]

I've just finished installing a very large mod order (Nolvus) on F: drive. OS drive (C:) is now in the red. Only OS there. Now C: is in red zone. Need to free up space. I keep recycle bin empty. Removed everything from desktop except shortcuts. Downloads folder kept empty (always), documents folder -nada.

Web search not help = confusing, contradictory, and inaccurate info. . How do I get non essential stuff off c:? Like maybe the extra restore points, or old windows updates, yada? Whatever... :smile: Thank you all.

 

Well, What Mod Manager are you using?

 

Because if you have a LOT of space being taken up on C:\, perhaps you have the download folder of your mod manager set to the C:\ drive when you could move it to a larger drive.

 

For instance, if you're using Vortex, go into SETTINGS----->DOWNLOADS, and change the path of your Download Folder

Same with MO2, NMM etc

 

 

 

 

[HeyYou]

Run a drive cleanup on your C drive, click on the button to 'clean up system files' as well. Things like windows updates, log files, and various other odd stuff MS thinks you need.... can take up a LOT of space. The windows.old folder can be up to around 30Gb......

 

So, open File Explorer, right click on your C drive, select Properties in the menu that comes up, click the Drive Cleanup button the general tab, and then do what I suggest above. You can pick and choose what stuff you dump.

[JimmyRJump]

You can also lower virtual memory space. Windows keeps a virtual memory space which dates from the days computers had 4, 8 or 16MB RAM and diskspace could be used as temporary RAM space. Nowadays, with RAM running in the dozens of GB, this virtual memory is redundant but still used by the OS.

[HeyYou]

You can also lower virtual memory space. Windows keeps a virtual memory space which dates from the days computers had 4, 8 or 16MB RAM and diskspace could be used as temporary RAM space. Nowadays, with RAM running in the dozens of GB, this virtual memory is redundant but still used by the OS.

Yeah, you can reduce the size of the page file. (virtual memory) "Stock", it's dynamic, and windows will adjust the size as it sees fit. Not always the best plan. You can set it to a smaller, fixed size, but, don't set it to zero.... that tends to annoy windows. :)