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**Brink** · 01 Jun 2007

How to Disable or Enable Low Disk Space Warning in Vista

Information

When your media device gets low on space, Vista will give you a Low Disk Space warning. This is to warn you to either clear space or get a bigger storage device soon.

This will show you how to enable or disable the Low Disk Space Warning for all drives in Vista.

Low Disk Space warning is enabled by default.

You must be logged in as an administrator to be able to do the steps in this tutorial.

Note

This is not the same as the XP way, but for only Vista 32 bit or 64 bit instead.
This will not work on a protected OEM recovery partition.

Warning

You will lose data, possibly everything, on the hard drive if you run out of space on it. I would recommend backing up your data and getting a bigger hard drive soon, or make more room on the drive by uninstalling stuff you do not need anymore.

This is not the same as a Low Memory error. A Low Memory error is usually due to the page file being turned off, or it's Min and Max size set to low.

METHOD ONE

By Removing the Drive Letter

NOTE: This option only affects the single hard drive. By removing or hiding the hard drive letter, there will be no drive letter associated to this partition or drive. Vista will no longer see the partition as anything useful to it and will stop giving you the Low Disk Space warning for only this partition or drive.

1. For how, see step 8 here: How to Show or Remove Drive Letters from Displaying in Vista

METHOD TWO

Manually in Registry Editor

NOTE: This will disable or enable the Low Disk Space warning for all drives.

1. Open the Start Menu.

2. In the white line (Start Search) area, type regedit and press Enter.

3. Click on Continue in the UAC prompt.

4. In regedit, go to: (See screenshot below)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows Search\Gather

5. In the right pane, right click on LowDiskMinimumMBytes and click on Modify. (See screenshot above)

6. To Disable the Low Disk Space Warning

A) Type 0 (number) and click on OK. (See screenshot below step 7A)

B) Go to step 8.

7. To Enable the Low Disk Space Warning

A) Type c8 and click on OK. (See screenshot below)

8. In regedit, go to: (See screenshot below step 10)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows Search\Gathering Manager

9. In the left pane, click on Gathering Manager to highlight in blue.

10. You will need to take ownership of Gathering Manager and "Allow" your user account "Full control" of it before continuing.

11. In the right pane of Gathering Manager, right click on BackOffLowDiskThresholdMB and click on Modify. (See screenshot above)

12. To Disable the Low Disk Space Warning -

A) Make it empty and click on OK. (See screenshot below step 13)

B) Go to step 14.

13. To Enable the Low Disk Space Warning

A) Type c8 and click on OK. (See screenshot below)

B) Go to step 15.

14. To Disable the Low Disk Space Warning

A) In regedit, go to: (See screenshot below step 14B)

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies

B) In the left pane, right click on Policies and click on New and Key. (See screenshot below)

C) Type Explorer and press Enter. (See screenshot below)

D) In the left pane click on Explorer.

E) In the right pane of Explorer, right click on a empty area, and click on New and DWORD (32bit) Value.

F) Type NoLowDiskSpaceChecks and press Enter. (See screenshot below)

G) In the right pane, right click on NoLowDiskSpaceChecks and click on Modify.

H) Type 1 and click on OK. (See screenshot below)

15. To Enable the Low Disk Space Warning

A) In regedit, go to: (See screenshot below step 14G)

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

B) In the right pane, right click on NoLowDiskSpaceChecks and click on Modify.

C) Type 0 (number) and click on OK. (See screenshot above)

16. Close regedit.

That's it,
Shawn

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**Asky** · 01 Jun 2007

Needed this,thnx

**Clark1221** · 05 Jun 2007

Greetings,
Hmmm........I don't have the Explorer sub-entry at the end of this path.
It ends at 'Policies'.

( HKey_Current_User\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies )

Any ideas?
Thanks

**Brink** · 05 Jun 2007

Originally Posted by Clark1221

Greetings,
Hmmm........I don't have the Explorer sub-entry at the end of this path.
It ends at 'Policies'.

( HKey_Current_User\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies )

Any ideas?
Thanks

Hi Clark,

Did you click the arrow on the left side of Policies? (see circled in red below)

Otherwise, you could right click on Policies and click New > Key and then type Explorer and press enter. Then add the above to it.

Here's the data for the Binary (see below)

Hope this helps,
Shawn

**Clark1221** · 05 Jun 2007

Shawn.........to clarify, there is no arrow next to 'Policies'. I found that a bit strange.
But..........I can create the 'Explorer' sub-folder?
Also.......do I also need to create both entries? (NoDriveTypeAutoRun & NoLowDiskSpaceChecks)

**Brink** · 05 Jun 2007

Originally Posted by Clark1221

Shawn.........to clarify, there is no arrow next to 'Policies'. I found that a bit strange.
But..........I can create the 'Explorer' sub-folder?
Also.......do I also need to create both entries? (NoDriveTypeAutoRun & NoLowDiskSpaceChecks)

Hi Clark,

I'll do one better for you. I exported mine for you to merge with yours.

Here's how to do it:
1. Click on Policies.reg (below) and save it to your desktop.
NOTE: For 32 bit or 64 bit Vista.

Policies.reg

2. Right click on Policies.reg (on desktop) and click Merge.
3. Answer YES and OK to the confirmation pop-up windows.
4. Delete file when done.

That's it. It should be there now as above.

Hope this helps you,
Shawn

**ShocWave** · 11 Jun 2007

Hmm.... I just tried it, but it doesn't seem to be working.

**Brink** · 11 Jun 2007

Hi ShocWave,

Which part is not working?
What kind of hard drive are your using? (ATA/SATA, Raid, etc.)

Shawn

**ShocWave** · 11 Jun 2007

I'm using just a regular ATA drive.
Even after I change the values the registry, the low disk space warning still comes up in my systray.

**Brink** · 11 Jun 2007

Hi Shocwave,

Make sure you do all of the above.

Also, do a restart to see if the changes will take affect then.

Let me know please, so I can update this tip.
Shawn

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