Delete Unnecessary Programs

What is the best way to create more space on my C drive? It is almost full. How do I determine what programs I do not need?

 

Temporarily disabling hibernate is a quick way to gain a large amount of hard drive space.

 

And the recycle bin, and system restore. That's like 12+ GB right there.

That said, OP - if you don't use a program, it's probably safe to remove. Open the control panel (Start > control panel) then click "Add Remove Programs" for XP and "Remove a Program" or "Programs and Features" for Vista.

 

Sounds like its time to upgrade your drive; 500GB HDDs can be had for less than $100.

Buy the HDD and an enclosure. Use something like Acronis (free trial) to clone your existing drive, swap, boot up, and use your old drive in the enclosure as a portable USB HDD.

 

Oh cmon, let's not be dramatic. Most people do not need 500GB hard drives. The OP probably is fine and just needs to do some housecleaning.
Buying new stuff is not always a viable option for people, even if that is the "best" solution.

Some things to do:
(XP is assumed, preloaded by an OEM is assumed)
-Right click recycle bin and click properties. Move the slider down from 10% to say 2%. Less space in the recycle bin, but it's just trash. Empty more often and you'll have no issues.
-Right click My Computer and select properties. Click the System Restore tab and drag the slider down from 12%. You will have less system restore points, but IMO... all you need is one.
-Delete the i386 folder at the root of your C:\ drive (it may be hidden). This is what your OEM used to install Windows on your hard drive, and is no longer needed. Easy way to do it is Start>Run>Type CMD hit enter.
Type "rmdir /s /q C:\I386" with no quotes and hit enter.
-Run CCleaner.

If you have Vista all of these steps can be applied, it's just a slightly different process to do them.

 

Programs are usually the smallest part of disk space usage.
Deinstalling a typical 200 kB - 50 MB program isn't going to make much impact on a drive where 250 GB has been used.

Delete some of your pr0n videos or similar, and you'll free up a lot more space.

 

first of all you dont need every program that you install be directed to your C
when you have partition you can make a folder and install the software from there.. all the registry file and .dll are going to be stored in C so you wont have any problems with it..

 

you could also use CCleaner to clean out junk, i sometimes delete a GB worth of things