Dumb question (or perhaps dumb peson)!

[MrsDoyle]

Why do I have so little memory left (17%) in my old (8 years) computer when I never download anything and I regularly use my clean up and defragment facilities?

[unlinkedstudent]

Software updates from Microshat and anti-virus. Adds to system registry and the like for starters.

 

Edit: Also, depending upon which version of Windows you are running, clean-up doesn't delete temporary files and temporary internet files (I think Millennium was a culprit - I took several hours cleaning up my mate's laptop for this very reason).

[Colin]

Get (and run) a copy of CClearer.

 

It's FREE and does a decent job of removing crap.

[ArabiaTerra]

^^^ I second the recommendation of CCleaner. A brilliant little program.

 

http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner

[zebbidy]

go into your start menu and click run then type temp and hit enter, delete everything you can in the box that pops up

go into run again but this time type %temp% and delete everything that you can inside the box that pops up

last but not least go back into start menu and type prefetch hit enter and delete everything you can out of that box

this will delete most temp files you do not need to have.

 

or you can just re install windows to give you a major chunk of your space back.

 

or upgrade your hard drive as you can get 500gb drives for very cheap now

[ArabiaTerra]

^^^^ I would be wary of trying to upgrade the Hard Drive. An 8 year old PC probably pre-dates the shift from IDE to SATA. IDE drives are quite thin on the ground these days.

 

Edit: Just 3 on offer from DABS, at shocking prices for the capacity offered:

 

http://www.dabs.com/category/components-and-storage,hard-drives,internal-hard-drives/11154-52420000

[shetlandpeat]

I got a SATA caddy for £15 and a 500mb drive for £25, shop around.