Documents and setting file

I am running a asus eee with solid state drives:-

The original set up is with windows XP on the 4GB drive. However the drive is always practically full.

I have looked through the file and the onyl thing I can see is that the document and settings file appears larger than the sub-sub folders it contains.

Withing documents and settings I have to folders all users and myself it is these two file that appear very large (all users 99MB but contents only ~700KB) (myself 136MB but contents ~ 5MB)

Why is this?
Are the files really so big, or is my system reading the infromation incorrectly and if so is there a way to correct this?

 

There are a lot of hidden files and folders. You can click on
My Computer-Folder Options-View
Put Check in "Display contents of System folders "
also select "Show hidden files and folders"

This way you can see what is there.

You can also download ATF Cleaner from:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/ATF_Cleaner_d4949.html

Double click ATF-Cleaner.exe to run the program.
Check the boxes for:

Windows Temp
Current User Temp
All Users Temp
Cookies***
Temporary Internet Files
Prefetch
Recycle bin

if you want it to remove everything check "Select All ".
click Empty Selected.

***Please remember if you have web sites you visit which have your user name and password saved, deleting Cookies will delete those user names and passwords.


ATF Cleaner will free up some space for you.

Hope this helps.

Mitch

 

A 4 GB drive is too small for a installation of XP, my windows folder alone contains just under 3 GB.

 

You know, I looked right past that. I did a little research and found Monkeyboy's system would have been installed with Windows XP Starter Edition and I think its space requirements are considerably less. Haven't googled it yet but I plan to.

 

The system came with XP installed on the 4GB drive along with other programmes as well. The problem has manifest itself when trying to run updates. My windows file contains 1,52GB.

I would still like to know why my documents and setting files is so large when the contents within are not?

 

You will need to uncheck "Hide protected operating system files" and select to "Show Hidden Files and Folders" in Folder Options to see all the files there. Then note the size of the individual user registry files (Ntuser).