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My Windows XP SP2 install size has gone past 4 GB.

Is anyone able to tell me why it keeps growing? I know that it does get larger but I have never seen it cross 1. 5 or 2GBs before now.

Am I able to do anything to reduce this size as it is taking up valuable space on my C drive?

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What is the path to the folder that is growing? Are you running SP2 or SP3 and the issue is in a SP2 folder? –  David Remy Aug 18 '10 at 5:04
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3 Answers

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If you have 4GB of ram, you may have a 4gb hybernation file, or a a 4gb page file...etc.

Look up how to turn off hybernation if you don't use it and decrease your pagefile or set it to a different hard drive.

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no i have 512 MB of memory and 400 Mb of virtual memory –  Junaid Saeed Aug 18 '10 at 5:20
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You really want to know what's taking up all the space?

  1. Go here.

  2. Click the 'free software' tab and then scroll down.

  3. Download and run SpaceMonger v1.4.0.

This thing is great, and you'll literally be able to see what is taking up your drive. Whether it is installer/updates junk, internet cache files, or hibernation/page files I do not know.

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I've been using SpaceMonger for the last 5 years or so. It is the first thing I put on any toolkit USB drive I'm using –  Joe Taylor Jul 18 '12 at 21:41
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If you follow this guide and clear out old windows updates you're sure to free up some space. Also run CCleaner and you'll be better on hard drive space in general.

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Welcome to Super User! Whilst this may theoretically answer the question, it would be preferable to include the essential parts of the answer here, and provide the link for reference. –  KronoS Jul 18 '12 at 22:58
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