System Restore... AKA The Disk PIG

Holy crap, I just turned off System restore on my C-drive so it would clean up restore points and it cleaned off 12GB of space.

Now, understand having it ON isnt the problem. Its having 10 different restore points saved that is killing you.

If your happy with the way your system is running and all is and has been well then turn it off to clear the storage used then turn it back on.

To do so:

Right click on "Computer" in the right side of the start menu and choose Properties. Next on the upper left menu of that window choose System protection. If this is the first time doing that it will "Scan" for it for a while. When its done click on the checkbox next to the C drive and click apply/ok. Follow the same steps above to get back to that point and recheck the C drive check box and click apply and close to turn it back on.

Doing so I went from 65.4 GB free to 77.8 GB free on my hard drive. This was immediately after a clean install, drivers and updates to SP1 and addition of all my apps.

Im stunned at the amount of space it hogs up.

 

That and the UAC are the 1st things I shut off after I formatted...and indexing....a world of difference...cheers!

 

yeah, I don't much care for the UAC. It is a good idea in principal that was not at all explained or marketed and poorly implimented.

I left it on with my laptop but turn it off at work. I would be clicking allow and continue all day otherwise.

 

Another way to do this is:

- open 'Computer'
- right click C: drive, select Properties
- select 'Disk Cleanup'
- select second tab
- click on selection to delete all but most recent restore point
- click OK

 

Funny, I just posted about this in a different thread. Rather than disabling system restore completely, you can restrict the amount of space allocated to restore points:

I have reduced my allocation to 4 gigs.

To change default:
1. Open the Start Menu.
2. In the white line (Start Search) area, type cmd.
3. Right click cmd (at top), and click Run as administrator.
4. Click Continue button for UAC prompt.
5. In command prompt, type vssadmin list shadowstorage and press Enter.
6. To change, type:
vssadmin Resize ShadowStorage /For=C: /On=C: /Maxsize=3GB and press Enter.

NOTE:
/For= Your main drive (EX: C: )
/On= Destination drive of backup
Maxsize= Size you want to limit it to, # + GB or MB

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/76227-system-restore-disk-space.html

 

Also, you can change the amount of space reserved for backups. I can't remember, but the default is pretty darn big. I've got mine down to 1%.

EDIT: Yeah, what Ashtounding said