Anyone still running Windows 7?

What’s the absolute bare minimum I should set aside, versus what you’d actually recommend?
I've got a 160GB drive and I'm looking to carve out a separate partition just for my personal files, so I'm trying to figure out how much breathing room I really need to leave for Windows 7?
Thanks!

The minimum is 20, but I’m sitting here with 40.
For me, it’s just enough for all the stuff I run—you know, media players, Photoshop, OCR software, drivers, backup copies, etc. I keep my games on a completely different partition, obviously.

Keith Bennett38 said:Why would anyone even touch the system reserved partition when it’s only like 100 MB???

Honestly, I still don't really get this whole phenomenon.
If some group of developers over at Microsoft decided that specific partition is necessary—well, I just don't see why people feel the need to mess with it. It's not like you're going to lose anything significant because of 100MB... I mean, it's basically just ten minutes less of junk cluttering up your drive, right? ☕

Gary Williams47 said:The most effective remedy—at least in my estimation—would be to simply throw more RAM at the problem if your hardware allows for it. Alternatively, you could try plugging in a USB flash drive and waiting for that autoplay prompt to pop up asking what you intend to do with it; just select "speed up my system" and see where that takes you.

I appreciate the assistance. After taking a closer look at my running processes, it appears they aren't actually the culprits behind the RAM drain, so I'm left scratching my head over the cause. I gave the USB trick a shot, which shaved a few percentage points off the load, but nothing substantial. It looks like I'll just have to bite the bullet and pick up another gigabyte of RAM.

Jonathan Wood5 said:What’s the bare minimum versus what you actually need?
My drive is 160GB and I want to set aside an empty partition for my own files, so I'm wondering how much space I really need to reserve for Windows 7?
Thanks

Requirements:
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1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor

1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)

16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)

DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
__________________

So, here’s the headache I'm dealing with. I’ve got a 160GB drive split up: the C partition has 100GB running Windows 7, and the D partition has 60GB running Windows XP. My plan was to wipe the XP side clean, shrink it down to 60GB, and then give that extra space over to my main Windows 7 partition so I'd have 100GB for files and 60GB for the OS. But here's where it gets weird—when I pull up Partition Magic 8.0 to try and resize things, it’s acting like there’s zero breathing room on that C drive. It tells me the whole 100GB is totally maxed out! It’s like the software is seeing a brick wall where there should be an open field. If I jump into My Computer, everything looks fine; it clearly shows I've only used about 20GB of that 100GB. Even when I boot back into XP, the math stays the same.
Anyone got a clue what might be causing this glitch?

So I'm running into a headache with System Restore. Every time I try to kick it off, it just tells me there aren't any restore points created and asks if I want to type one in manually. Basically, it’s not doing that whole automatic thing like it used to back in the Windows XP days. Anyone know what's up? I definitely have System Restore turned on for my C drive, and I've even allocated 1 GB of space for it.

This is primarily intended for Windows 7 users. It’ll work on Vista x86, too—but whatever you do, DO NOT attempt this if you're running Vista x86 64-bit, because it causes issues.

Instructions for enabling godmode:
1. Create a new folder, name it GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}, and hit enter.
2. Once you do that, you'll see an icon like this:

Open the folder and you'll find all your settings in one single spot.🙏hifty:
(Keep in mind, GodMode is just a label; you can name the folder whatever you want.)

Hey everyone. I just finished installing Windows 7 on my laptop, and honestly, everything looks dim. It’s like someone turned down the lights across the entire screen. Back when I was running Windows XP, things were much brighter and crisper. Does anyone know how I can brighten "EVERYTHING" back up?

All sorted. Turns out he just had his brightness turned way down. If anyone else runs into this, just check those settings—it was an HP laptop

How much space is your Windows 7 (32-bit) actually eating up on your hard drive?
For me, the OS itself sits at about 8.5 GB, but whenever I run a scan on my C: drive using this tool (http://download.cnet.com/1770-20_4-0...type=downloads), it flags nearly 6 GB of mystery files sitting right there under the C: root that just won't show up—and I've definitely got "show hidden files" turned on. When I check My Computer, the total usage for the C: drive is showing closer to 13 GB.
Is this just how Windows 7 operates, or am I looking at something else entirely?

I mean, did you end up with a windows.old folder left over on your C drive?

darkviper7 said:you didn't leave a windows.old folder sitting on your C drive, did you?

Nah, I checked everywhere and there's absolutely nothing like that hanging around. All I see is the usual Windows, Users, and Program Files folders. But get this—this tool is flagging nearly 6 GB of mystery junk sitting right there at the root of the C: drive.
Just so we're clear, my Windows setup was installed on a totally wiped C: drive.

Man, there are just way too many files here, isn't there?
Maybe try running a disk cleanup first—but like, before you hit that d. Cleanup button—to clear out everything except for the most recent shadow copy. Also, you should probably double-check how big your Pagefile is set to... just to be safe.

darkviper7 said:Is there actually a massive pile of files sitting there or what?
You might want to run a d. Cleanup and just wipe everything except for the most recent shadow copy. While you're at it, take a quick look at how much space your Pagefile is hogging.

It’s not even about having tons of files; I’ve just got this one single 5.8GB file taking up space. I can give Disk Cleanup a shot, but since I just formatted the drive, I'm not sure if that'll actually do anything for me. Also, I don't have a Pagefile set up—is that basically the same thing as the old swap file? It could be something related to the swap file, but the size seems way too big for that. That's why I was hoping someone running Windows 7 could help me out by checking the exact file list with this little tool (it's free and doesn't even need installing).
If that doesn't work, maybe they could just tally up the total size of his files and compare it to the actual capacity shown on the C drive (under Local Disk C🙂, to see if the numbers actually match up.
I'm seeing that same 6 GB discrepancy on my end too.

Well, I'm running Windows 7 myself 😉 And on Windows 7, they call it the Pagefile (or paging file, or whatever xD)
Look, it automatically creates shadow copies whenever you install drivers. Since you’re installing one, then restarting, then doing it again—like, xy times—it just piles up a bunch of copies.
Then you've got your antivirus stuff and all that. Basically, after I did a fresh format and installed everything brand new, I ended up with like a gig and a half of shadow copies, which is why I suggested running d. Cleanup.

Does anyone know why the hibernate option isn't showing up in my Start menu alongside Sleep and Restart? I'm on Windows 7x64Pro

Just looking at my weekly log, the core system files alone are sitting at about 8.5GB. I have no clue if hibernation is going to tack on another 1.7GB or more on top of that, not to mention the Pagefile and whatever System Restore points are hogging up space—that usually eats up about 10% of the drive unless you manually throttle it back. Then you've still got the Recycle Bin taking its cut, which hasn't changed from how it used to be. 🙂

On my x86 ultimate, I’ve still got the full suite: switch users, sign out, lock, restart, sleep, and hibernation. Did you maybe disable them through some TuneUp utility or somewhere else?

my Windows folder is sitting at 7.68 gb 🙂