Notice how after you install windows Updates and Service Packs you lose a TON of space? Well here is how to regain much of that space:
1) Delete all folders C:\windows\$nt*uninst*, this will mean you cannot uninstall any Service Packs or MS Updates you installed, but when have you ever uninstalled a windows update? .... I thought so.Make sure you only delete folders that have "uninst" in the name as I am not sure about the other "$nt" folders. (For you really careful people you can move these to some type of external drive) Note: to see these files you will need to uncheck the "Hide protected Operating system files" and set "Show hidden files and folders" in the Folder Options view tab.
2) Empty the "C:/Windows/Software Distribution/" folder. Most the time you can just open the folder and delete everything inside, but if that gives you problems you can stop the "Automatic Update" service and delete the whole folder, when you restart the AU service again it will recreate the folder. I do this all the time when repairing Windows Update issues so you should have no problems.
Oh, why you are at it delete the windows sample files and folders in the "My Pictures" and "My Music" folders. Also if you don't care about Windows sounds you can search for and delete all windows .wav files. Not much space saved but real easy to do. If you do this remember to change your sound scheme to not play any sounds, otherwise it will slow down you PC when it tries to play a .wav file and waits for a timeout before it proceeds.
These tricks alone saved me over 1.5 Gigs of space. Currently I have a WinXP SP3 Professional fully updated, Office 2003 (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint), Adobe Reader 9, Sprint Smartview, CCleaner (great program to reclaim lost space) and Google Talk installed in 3.33Gigs, that leaves 4.15Gigs free. This is a full XP install from a CD, not a lite version.
One day I will sit down and write a batch file to automate cleanups.
I am a Windows Network Administrator by trade so I have experience in this, that said I make no claims these steps will not totally screw up your PC.
1) Delete all folders C:\windows\$nt*uninst*, this will mean you cannot uninstall any Service Packs or MS Updates you installed, but when have you ever uninstalled a windows update? .... I thought so.Make sure you only delete folders that have "uninst" in the name as I am not sure about the other "$nt" folders. (For you really careful people you can move these to some type of external drive) Note: to see these files you will need to uncheck the "Hide protected Operating system files" and set "Show hidden files and folders" in the Folder Options view tab.
2) Empty the "C:/Windows/Software Distribution/" folder. Most the time you can just open the folder and delete everything inside, but if that gives you problems you can stop the "Automatic Update" service and delete the whole folder, when you restart the AU service again it will recreate the folder. I do this all the time when repairing Windows Update issues so you should have no problems.
Oh, why you are at it delete the windows sample files and folders in the "My Pictures" and "My Music" folders. Also if you don't care about Windows sounds you can search for and delete all windows .wav files. Not much space saved but real easy to do. If you do this remember to change your sound scheme to not play any sounds, otherwise it will slow down you PC when it tries to play a .wav file and waits for a timeout before it proceeds.
These tricks alone saved me over 1.5 Gigs of space. Currently I have a WinXP SP3 Professional fully updated, Office 2003 (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint), Adobe Reader 9, Sprint Smartview, CCleaner (great program to reclaim lost space) and Google Talk installed in 3.33Gigs, that leaves 4.15Gigs free. This is a full XP install from a CD, not a lite version.
One day I will sit down and write a batch file to automate cleanups.
I am a Windows Network Administrator by trade so I have experience in this, that said I make no claims these steps will not totally screw up your PC.
. i've had to install some quite chunky programs for uni, so if i can free up that much space i'll be stoked 
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