Hello, I am new to this forum, so I hope I have this question in the right spot (I’m sorry if it’s not). I am a novice when it comes to computers, so bear with me.
I’ve been using the free Avast 4.8 Home Edition for the past two weeks. My computer uses Windows 2000. It had been working OK since I installed it, but just yesterday, I’ve been receiving a message. Basically, before, Avast would pop up a blue window telling me that the virus database has been updated. Now it pops up a red window telling me “An error has occurred while attempting to update”, with another window telling me there is not enough space on the disk. I tried to clean up some space, but I still get this message. So, I can’t update the database.
According to my computer, I have 4.56 MB of free space, and a capacity of 4.00 GB (none of this really means anything to me, I’m afraid).
How much space does Avast need? Is this normal? Is there any other way to clear up space on my computer? If anyone can help with this, I would greatly appreciate it.
Wow. If you really only have a little over 4 MB of free space, you really need to free up some room! I’m surprised your PC even functions. The system uses hard disk space to store some memory items. This is called swap space. How much RAM does your PC have? Double that number and that’s how much swap space you should have. At least have 1.5 times that amount. And that doesn’t even count any extra space you want to store other files.
Four GB is a very small main drive. Is buying a new drive a possibility? You can get a huge second drive for very little money and then move all of your programs and data to that one. That would leave only the operating system and swap space on your main drive.
When you get to 80-85% capicity you really should be looking at a bigger disk. Windows will not even attempt a defrag if you have less than 15% free space.
You could try cleaning the junk on your system, I would normally recommend a program but you have so little space. I don’t use w2k so I don’t know if this will work with it, right click on your C:\ drive in explorer and select Properties, Disk Cleanup, see image and see how much you can free up, it might not be much.
Thanks for the quick replies. I’ll try your suggestions. Although, I’ll probably need to get a new computer at some point.
I got the computer used, from the company my brother in law works for. They were upgrading all their old computers and replacing them with new ones. I just took one so I could go online, which is really all I use the computer for.
The thing is, because it once belonged to a company, (it is a Compaq, if that matters), and is at least 5-6 years old, or older seeing as how they wanted to upgrade their computers, I think there are a lot of old files from whoever used to use it still on it. I’ll go through my computer and delete any of the old files if I can. I don’t have any important files myself. Think that would clear up some space?
If this is an older PC and you primarily use it for Internet access, I’d recommend wiping the whole thing and starting over with some flavor of linux. My favorite, which is extremely easy to use it PCLinuxOS. It’s super easy to install, but you still might want to have someone help you if you don’t trust yourself with the process. Linux will run a lot faster on that old equipment than Windows. It has a much smaller footprint and I think you’d enjoy the experience more, but that’s just my opinion.
I’ve never really tried Ubuntu or its variants for more than a passing glance. I used PCLinuxOS for a couple of months and loved it. However, there were a couple of applications that I used regularly that required Windows XP and I just got tired of dual booting. If it weren’t for those apps (and some awesome games) I’d still be using linux as my main OS. Something like Kubuntu or PCLinuxOS would be perfect for an older machine.
Yes. I didn’t really care for the way it worked at the time. Besides, the main application I’m thinking of is a very resource-intensive real-time audio application that needs to be highly tuned for the system to work properly. That’s definitely not the sort of thing you want to try to run under Wine or the other VM tools.
Someday I may give it another shot, though. I sure loved the linux experience for the most part, but I already knew a little unix so the command line didn’t scare me.
Is there any reason why I might have so little space? I know that might be hard to answer, but I don’t really have that much stuff on my desktop. The last things I installed were Avast and Comodos firewall. What else could take up so much space?
Four GB isn’t very much space. It wouldn’t take more than your operating system plus a handful of large applications and temp files to eat up your drive. Did you try the disk cleanup tool yet?
You might want to download the Wise Disk Cleaner if you have room. It should clean up a bunch of old junk that you don’t need, which should free up several megabytes of space.
We still don’t know what your operating system is (at least I can’t seem to see it mentioned), I suspect with Comodo on it may be XP ?
If XP that can consume large amounts of space. My windows folder is 2.57GB for starters before you add anything. System Restore uses more chunks of space with the System Volume Information folder, but that totally depends on what OS you are using, win98 and win2000 don’t have system restore.
I tried the disk clean up, but really, there was not much to get rid of. Just some temporary internet files, and that’s about it. I’ll give the Wise Disk Cleaner thing a try. Although, I think I should just invest in a new computer. I don’t even have the original disks for it.
My two cents here is the following. Although use at your own risk.
First thing is to look at Add/Remove programs and see what all is there. Leave drivers and programs you use alone, but some unused programs or programs that require a lot of space you can delete.
Second I would delete Windows Update files if they exist. I have not used 2000 Pro in a while, but it should be in C:\WINNT\Software Distribution\Download. A new computer running XP can accumulate up to 600MB of updates in that folder.
Third, is look at “My Documents” and see what all is yours and not yours.
Fourth, look at all user profiles that are on the disk. Companies often employ multiple users, so there is a chance if networking was not a primary mode (most home systems log on to a profile on the hard disk, but some companies opt for users to connect to a server on Windows that enables them to use any computer in their network) that there could be space used by other accounts. I know account options can be accessed in the Control Panel via “User Accounts.” However there is an option to leave the users in and flush out the profile, by right clicking “My Computer” and going over to the Advanced tab. I am not 100% sure how 2000 works, but there should be a User Profiles box and a setting button on it. Clicking it will load a screen with all profiles and their space used.
That is all for now, there are a few more tips but those would be more advanced and time consuming.
Edit: Deleting profiles will break programs that are installed to that profile only.
