Solved How do I recover my free space?

[snarfman]

Ok so apparently the volume shadow copy service was disabled. I enabled it and repeated the steps and found that there are no restore points stored.View attachment 27625View attachment 27626

 

[snarfman]

I think the problem is solved. I'm guessing that when I re-enabled the shadow copy service it somehow automatically deleted any restore points because I looked back at the disk space and it now shows 186gb free instead of 150-something. Thanks for the help!!! Just one last question though....will windows automatically create restore points or do I have to do it manually every time?

 

[richc46]

First, I am glad that we were able to help with your space problem.
Secondly, by default, system restore should be made automatically. Why not wait a week, check to see if you have new restore points. If not, post back and we will set it to work automatically.

 

[DonnaB]

Did you install ALL your Windows Updates after the factory restore? If not, please do so. Windows will create a restore point at that time. If you have already Updated Windows to SP2/IE8 or 9, I would still create a restore point if there are none (just in case)

 

[XGenius]

Your Windows folder looks enormous! Mines is only like about 18 gb? Maybe it's that folder. I run Vista too.

 

[DonnaB]

I believe that may be due to the winsxs folder, XGenius. My Vista C:\Windows folder is 19.7GB's and C:\Windows\winsxs alone is 12.9GB's. Nothing to really worry about. All the components in the operating system are found in that folder on Vista and above.

See here for a good read on that subject. Please note that the article was created prior to Win7.

 

[XGenius]

I see, very interesting.

 

[richc46]

Poster indicates that the available space is back to normal. It was the restore points that were taking the space.