Given below are steps that show you how to free up the available space on the hard drive of a PC featuring Windows 7, XP, or Vista. If you have installed any of those Operating Systems on your computer, you can free up storage space on the hard drive by any of the below methods.

Using the Disk Cleanup Tool

Run Disk Cleanup from the Start menu on the desktop. For that enter Disk on the search box of Start and open Disk Cleanup, which appears under Programs, and choose C drive or the drive where you installed system files. Loading up Disk Cleanup may take a while, so wait for that.

Once you enter the cleanup tool on Windows PC, put a check mark next to all of the checkboxes. They represent the boxes that are consuming hard disk space, so select all and then click on OK and Yes in order to continue disk cleanup. When doing the process, you can compress the hard drive as well, although it is not recommended to compress it or any of the old files if you do not know what you are doing.

Disable Windows System Restore

You can lessen the default space consumed by System Restore by disabling it on your computer featuring Windows XP or Vista, or even Windows 7. This will help you to free up storage space of your hard drive by several GB. Follow the below steps to customize the feature.

Navigate to Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > System Restore. Inside the folder, select System Restore Settings. Here, you have the option to put a checkmark next to Turn Off System Restore on All Drives, which will fully disable the feature. Alternatively, you can choose Settings button and then limit the allotted space. Computer tech support professionals usually recommend the second option to those who have less storage space in their PC.

Move the Page File to Other Drives

The page file can cause more memory storage in the PC than what is installed. If you have partitioned your system and have more drives apart from the C drive, and that runs out of sufficient storage space, you can move the page file to a different drive.

Also known as a swap file, this is a temporary file in the C drive which stores info not necessarily used by the RAM. It is common for the swap file to grow hundreds of megabytes in terms of size thus contributing to computer running slow issues. After you have cleared all the unwanted elements from the computer, maintain sufficient storage space in it, as that would ensure that your PC performs better.