Re: A question about computers.
Good suggestions! Definitely keep a lookout of how many programs you've installed and how big they are, or how many other files you have on the computer. Emptying recycle bin, clearing Windows update cash, clearing system restore points, clearing temp files etc. are all good things to start with. And speaking of clearing temp files, I normally use cCleaner to clean a lot of crap up. There are probably better programs for this, but C Cleaner always find things that disc cleanup didn't. The only thing I really don't like about it is that it has a realtime monitoring component now that automatically starts with Windows, and I don't know how to disable it. Every time I try, it re-enables itself.
If you are still struggling to free space, another option is to look for programs specifically designed to show you which files and folders are taking up the most space. Then you can of course deal with them on a case-by-case basis. That said, I don't have personal experience with any of these programs. The best I can tell you is that some of them will probably try to show you a diagram which will obviously be difficult to navigate with a screen reader. I tried one a few years ago with this result, and just never got around to trying others. since I keep obsessive track of my files and mentally catalog roughly how big they are, and since I have way too much hd space these days, I rarely find myself needing this kind of tool, but I would recommend looking into it if you need it.
If those things still aren't getting you the space you feel you should have, there are a few more ideas, but they're really only appropriate if Windows is installed on a small drive, such as an SSD that's 120 gigs or something. If you're on a 500 gig drive for instance, then these ideas wont' help you so much because the percent of space you'll end up saving is smaller, and generally you want to keep 10 percent or more of your Windows drive free, so a few gigs here and a few gigs there isn't enough to clean up a full large drive.
First, if you don't need hybernate, it can clear up a few gigs I think if you disable it. A few months ago I found a simple command that you enter into cmd that disables it, but I can't remember what it is. A bit of research should help if you want to try that.
You could also try messing with the page file settings. I don't know how to get to them on Windows 8, however.
From what I understand, a page file is basically a file on the hard drive that is used as extra fake ram. It generally is a few gigs in size. Windows is set by default to manage the page file settings automatically, but it might be worth lowering the maximum page file size to free space on the drive. Some people say that you can disable the page file completely with no harm, but I am not that brave. I generally elect to keep mine at a maximum of 2 gigs in size. By default, mine was allocating 16 gigs of space. ON my 120 gig ssd, that's a fair amount! If you need a huge page file because you are frequently running out of ram, I'd say you'd be better off lowering the page file and getting more ram if that's possible. Unfortunately on a lot of budget machines it's not possible to change the ram though.
Since I don't know what kind of computer and setup you're on, I can't really recommend anything too specific for your case, but I hope these ideas are helpful. Good luck!
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