Change program files location windows 10, where is the installation directory, change default install location windows 7? There are many ways to play with Windows 10 to free up disk space if it starts to run out. We can, for example, delete temporary files . There are also certain folders that we can remove to open some hole in our disk .
Now, if you have one of those computers that bring a pretty limited amount of space, you’re going to want to save even the smallest, like an app of less than 100 MB. Fortunately Windows 10 not only lets you move apps to an external storage , but allows you to set another disk as the default location to install your applications.
You can use a pendrive, an SD card, or an external hard drive . No matter the medium really, all that matters is that you keep it connected to the computer and format it as NTFS.
First connect the storage drive to your computer, then navigate to This Computer and select the device you connected from the list. Right click on the drive and then on Format … (note that this erases all data on the drive).
Under File System, select NTFS from the drop-down menu. If you want you can give the unit a name in the Volume label box. Then press Start and wait for it to finish. You are ready to use the unit.
Move Windows 10 Applications to Another Drive
Change program files location windows 10, where is the installation directory, change default install location windows 7
Not all applications can be moved to another unit, you will have to check one by one the ones you want to move. To do this, open the Setup menu by pressing the Windows + I key and select Applications .
Navigate through the list of applications and select the one you are interested in moving. If the button works, simply click on it and then press apply to move the application to the new unit. Repeat with whatever you want, one by one, unfortunately can not be done by batch.
If you want all the apps you install in the future to be saved on the external storage device , you can also do so.
Open the setup menu again and go to System . In the menu on the right select Storage . There, find the Change storage location for new content option and click on it.
Now you can choose another drive to save the new applications. You can also do the same with other content, documents, music, photos, videos, etc.
“There is not enough disk space . ” That message that you never want to see, and that usually caught you at the least opportune moment . But however large your hard drive is, if you do not have the habit of doing certain cleaning and maintenance of the PC from time to time, sooner or later you see it.
Now, having little free disk space is not the end of the world. Releasing it is a rather tedious task, yes, but it has a solution, and it is simpler than it seems. What’s more, there are several tools that can help you with the different methods you can apply to free space on your hard drive and return to an optimal level of storage. Here are some of them.
To do a little cleaning
Change program files location windows 10, where is the installation directory, change default install location windows 7
It’s a no-brainer, but the first thing to do when you run out of hard drive space is … erase things . Ojo, we are not talking about eliminating important things, but yes to analyze the contents of your hard drive with a little more detail, looking for all those elements that all they do is take up space.
A good place to start is the bin . If you do not usually empty it just after deleting files, it’s all right to take a look, in case you have a few hundred megabytes wasted there. Another basic point in these first cleaning tasks is to check the applications you have installed: open the Control Panel, sort by size from the corresponding column and check, among the programs that occupy more space, which you actually use and which you could do without.
Another quick way to do a first cleanup is to use an integrated Windows tool: Free up space . To get to it, right click on the unit where you want to recover megs of space, choose “Properties” and on the “General” tab, click the “Free space” button.
The system will scan the selected drive and then display a list of items that you can safely delete, along with the total space that you would free if you do so.
Although if cleaning thoroughly is about, it is best to use an application specially created for it. Here the classic CCleaner can become the perfect ally to eliminate temporary files, browser and system cache, rest of uninstallations and other elements that only take up space.
But CCleaner is not the only one. There are many similar applications developed to help you with cleaning and maintenance of the system, in order to achieve a good level of performance
You have, for example, KCleaner , a cleanup application that promises to delete “to the last unusable byte”. KCleaner is interesting because it has an automatic mode that leaves the program running in the background and deleting files from time to time, and because it also has a system of secure deletion that prevents the recovery of those files that you delete with it.
Another interesting alternative is Clean Master , a PC cleaner that made the leap to the PC since its first version as an Android app. Clean Master removes “junk” from your computer in just a few clicks, all through a colorful, easy-to-use interface . It is an application clearly intended for the less technical user , and therefore has no advanced options or complicated settings.
To locate larger folders and files
How to free space in Windows 10 by moving your apps
Another recurring motive when space becomes scarce is to have lost control of what you keep exactly on your hard drive. Huge files that you downloaded from the Internet and you no longer need, MP3 collections that since you have Spotify no longer use … On your hard drive there may be files and folders that occupy a lot of space and that you could eliminate without problem.
How to locate them? Since Windows Explorer does not give much information about it, it is best to pull a third-party application, with which to analyze the disk space , see how it is distributed so that you can easily find those directories and files that occupy more space.
One of the most popular, for its simplicity of use, is TreeSize . It’s free and is available in portable version , so if you do not want to install it, you do not have to. Just select the drive you want to scan from the “Scan” menu (or from the context menu), and let the program do if it works. Its interface is very similar to that of the Windows File Explorer, and its results, very easy to interpret.
Another option that goes a little beyond the simple list of folders is WinDirStat, a “disk usage statistics viewer”, as they define it on your website (in addition to a cleaning tool). The WinDirStat interface, as well as a list of folders sorted by size, also gives you a slightly more colorful interpretation of how space is spread on your hard drive, allowing you to detect larger items more easily.
Now, if what you are looking for is a truly “visual” tool , SpaceSniffer is for you. It is free, does not require installation and allows you to understand in a very graphical way how space is distributed on your hard disk, and which are the folders and files that occupy most. The information is displayed in animated outline form, and you can browse its content easily. In addition, their filters allow to make more specific searches, by type of file, age or size, for example.
To delete duplicate files
How to free space in Windows 10 by moving your apps
Finally, another “culprit” that you have little space on the disk are usually duplicate files . It seems silly, but after years of using the computer, you can end up accumulating copies of songs, photos, documents and other types of files that rob you of disk space without your realizing it.
To help you with the task of detecting them, just as in the case of locating large files, there are several tools that you can use. One of the simplest alternatives is Duplicate Files Finder , a very simple utility , without many extra options, but with which you can find duplicate files quickly. Of course, they have to be exact duplicates, so it may not work with images or photos (where the size may vary depending on the compression).
Another option is AllDup , a free tool that locates duplicate files according to several criteria : name, size, content, dates, etc. The search can be done on both a hard disk and an optical drive, and the results are exportable to TXT or CSV. You can also choose what to do with the detected duplicates: copy them to another folder or delete them permanently.
One last interesting option to remove duplicate files is Auslogics Duplicate File Finder , a utility able to analyze the contents of your hard disk (or just a certain type of files, if you prefer) and locate the duplicates. You can filter the search by size, and choose the action to carry out with the results. The interface is simple in design, and the program, very easy to use.
Folders that you can delete in Windows 10 to free up disk space – How to free space in Windows 10 by moving your apps
The disk space is one of the most valuable resources on a computer, especially for those who have little to maneuver. Not only it is enough to worry about the files that we downloaded and the programs that we installed, but the same Windows occupies a good portion and with the passage of time expands even more if we do not do maintenance.
Although there are many utilities that we can use to free space , and deleting temporary files also helps a lot. A quick and easy way to get a few gigas extra is to delete some folders in the system that we do not need and that we can undo without fear.
The temporary file folder
To access it you need Administrator permissions. It is located in C:\Windows\Tempand you can access it by going to This computer> Local Disk> Windows> Temp . Once there select all the files and press the Delete key.
You will be prompted for confirmation as a system folder, and maybe some files can not be deleted instantly, but everything that is there is no longer necessary.
Old Windows
This folder stores the files of your old version of Windows each time you install an important update. Its content serves to return to an earlier version of the system, and therefore usually occupy a good portion of space.
Over time Windows automatically deletes it, but if you need that valuable space already, you can delete it manually. It is located in C:\Windows.oldand you get to it by going to This Computer> Local Disk> Windows.old .
The hibernation file
Although almost nobody uses the hibernation mode because the same Windows 10 hid it from the options menu at the time of restarting or turning off the system, the same is active by default. Hibernation mode allows your computer to start extremely fast because it preserves the state of everything you had open before suspending the computer, and for that it stores a huge file on your hard drive .
That file is not necessary, because the suspend mode does exactly the same thing, only it stores the state in RAM. The hibernation file is located in C:\hiberfil.sysbut with delete it do not do anything, because Windows will recreate it if hibernation is still active .
So what you should do is disable it. To do this press the start button, type “symbol of the system” right click on the result and execute it like administrator.
Inside the terminal type powercfg.exe /hibernate offand press enter. This disables hibernation mode and automatically deletes the file from your disk. You can check it by opening the settings.
Press the Windows + I key. Click on System , then on Storage , choose the drive where Windows is installed, select System and reserved and there you have the information.
Except for the hibernation file, most of these folders can be cleaned automatically using the Disk Cleanup that incorporates the same Windows. It’s good that you remember to run it from time to time. Or at least remember to empty the recycle bin by deleting all this by hand , after all, if you do not do the space is still occupied. How to free space in Windows 10 by moving your apps?