Re: Another question on Documents and Settings XP Home. SP3

Tech-Archive recommends: Speed Up your PC by fixing your registry

willshak wrote:
on 7/20/2009 12:24 PM (ET) Daave wrote the following:
willshak wrote:
on 7/20/2009 10:20 AM (ET) Lanwench [MVP - Exchange] wrote the
following:
willshak <willshak@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In my Windows XP Home SP3 C:\Documents and Settings\, I have 3
user profiles.
1. Administrator
2. All Users
3. My login user profile

What is 'All Users' used for? I am the only user of this computer
and am also the Administrator.
Can the profile 'All Users' be deleted, since no one else uses
this computer,
No. Don't even try.

or are there settings that I and Administrator need and are
not in the Administrator or my profiles?
Correct. It contains settings universal to all users on the
computer. It isn't hurting anything - leave it be.

Thanks, but if it could have been removed, I'd have another gig of
space on my C:\ drive. I have less than a gig there now.
I'll leave it be.

Do you mean you have less than 1GB of free space on your hard drive?
If so, you need to address this! How large is your hard drive? Do
you have an external hard drive?


It's an old Sony VAIO PCV-RX860 (old in computer years, that is) The
HD is listed as 80 gig with a C and D partition and was bought shortly
after the release of Windows XP.
According to 'My Computer', C: is 16.0 GB in size with 624 MB free.
D: is 58.5 GB in size with 28.9 GB left.
In the past, I have moved almost all Program files, My Documents, and
deleted programs I don't use anymore.
No new programs or apps are installed on the C: drive if they can be
installed on the D: drive.

Do yourself a favor and use the D: partition *only* for data (documents,
music, photos, etc.). C: should be used for the OS *and* all your
programs since when programs get installed, system files are usually
affected and you want to keep all that on one partition as a rule.

The good news is you have nearly 29 GB of free space on your hard drive.
However, you (or someone you know and trust) will need to use a
third-party partition utility to assign most of that unused space on D:
to C:. Once this is done, you'll have that much needed breathing room.

Or just get a larger hard drive. :-)

I do have a USB external drive of 150 GB partitioned as I: and J:, but
it is just used as a safety backup. I had to have a Windows
re-install 2 years ago and lost all on the C: drive, so I keep copies
of the Documents and settings, mail, unmovable C: drive programs, and
other stuff from the C: drive there.

Good. Backups are important!

However, only standalone programs may be copied (successfully). All the
other programs (most of them I am sure) would need to reinstalled from
scratch if the need would arise. That is why many of us recommend
regularly imaging or cloning your hard drive (which eliminates the need
to reinstall the OS and service packs and updates and programs).

Shenan's advice will help you *safely* reclaim more free space:

http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.windowsxp.general/msg/ec6ae4bbd543b3b0?hl=en

I have cleaned up the stuff on C and reduced the system restore size
to 1 MG as directed.

Very good. So how much free space do you now have on C:?

Also, you might want to consider purchasing a newer, large hard drive
(they are quite affordable and you can easily clone the contents of
your current one to the new one).

I do have a new internal Seagate HD waiting to be installed, but it is
beyond my skill and comfort level to clone the old drives to it.
I'll have to get it done by someone more knowledgeable.

Very smart. Happy computing!


.

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