What can I delete in my XP \windows directory?

Factual Questions
1

I run my OS and games off an old 74gb raptor hard drive - and 74gb isn’t that much space to go around anymore. I’m constantly running out of space and needing to shift stuff around.

A fresh XP install takes up somewhere around a gig or a gig and a half, IIRC… but after a few years of use, it balloons up. It’s now a bit over 6GB. I’m guessing at least some of that stuff is unnecesary, and if I can save some disk space, I’d like to. But I’m not going to just start deleting OS files.

It seems to keep an uninstall file for every update it’s ever done - is that really necesary? There’s a \windows\installer directory that takes up 1.5gb. What does that do?

My \system32 directory is about 1.7gb, mostly full of DLL files, some of which may not even be in use anymore.

700 megs is taken up by a hf_mig directory, whatever that is.
500 by “assembly”
388 by “softwaredistribution”
270 by “internet logs”

Is any of this stuff deletable? Do any of those “clean out your windows/registry/computer!” programs actually work well, and would they take care of this?

2

You can save a lot of space by compressing. I suggest you compress the c:\Windows and c:\Program Files trees.

You can delete all the service pack uninstall files.

3

I wouldn’t compress.

Get hold of the program CCLEANER located here:

run it. it will remove loads of junk, including all those unnecessary install files and logs.

4

>It seems to keep an uninstall file for every update it’s ever done - is that really necesary? There’s a \windows\installer directory that takes up 1.5gb.

Yeah, you can move the uninstall files elsewhere and the installer directory can be moved to another drive by first changing a reg key. You dont want to move this without telling windows where it is.

>What does that do?

This contains all the service packs and things that are different from your windows CD. Windows considers this its repository for up to date system files.

>700 megs is taken up by a hf_mig directory, whatever that is.

Similar to the install files. Do not delete these.

>I run my OS and games off an old 74gb raptor hard drive - and 74gb isn’t that much space to go around anymore.

I highly suggest you leave all this stuff alone, perhaps the uninstall files from those updates can go, but everything else in there belongs there. Most likely you have temp files and other junk larger than this in your non-system areas. You can see your space hogs visually with windirstat (free download, open source). Run the disk cleanup tool to get rid of temp files, logs, etc. Run ccleaner last. Uninstall whatever games and other junk you dont need. Finish it all off with a nice defrag.