Sum of the parts does not equal total

[Robert Reed]

My computer has been running slow of late. While carousing around looking for anything that may have slowed it down, I again came across a curiosity in the 'C' drives properties window. This shows a used space of 11.5 Gbytes. Upon opening that drive, I added up all the properties for the folders and what not displayed. They added up to 5.7 Gbytes. What gives? For a long time, my 'C' drive always showed about 5.5-6.0 Gbytes used space. Back a few months ago while trying to "clean house" I noticed afterward that this figure had mysteriously doubled in size! I use windows XP on an 80 Gbyte hard drive. I run two browsers on DSL. The 'C' folder for XP shows 2.6 Gbytes of used space for its DOS (seems rather large). Are all my operations running twice?

[SETEC_Astronomy]

The reason is likely that you have system restore enabled which takes up a lot of space as does the hibernation file and paging file. The files mentioned are normally hidden so a select all + properties would omit the figures for those files. System does in essence save two copies of certain files so changes can be reversed. If you're satisfied your computer is at a state you would not want to regress from you can clear all of your restore points and start fresh from that point on.

[Robert Reed]

Setec
Thank you for that info. Put it to work and reduced 'C' content from 12 G down to 8.2G and computer is working much faster now. One question tho - I diasabled the Restore function and then ran some cleanup programs - checked 'C' size and noted the afforementioned reduction - then enabled Restore and rechecked 'C' and all was still OK. My question is - does the Restore automatically establish a new (current) reset point at time of enabling it or do I have to go back in and establish a set point?

[SETEC_Astronomy]

I'm fairly certain when you re-enable system restore it automatically creates a new restore point. If that is not the case a new one can be made manually or if you wait about a week one will be created for you. Once you re-enable system restore your job is done.

[MrAl]

Hi,

It is easy enough to find out if Restore took a restore snapshot or not.
Just go into Restore (open the program) and pretend you are going to
"Restore my computer to an earlier time", by selecting that and clicking
"Next".
The next screen has a calendar that has bold number for days on which
a restore point had been created. If you click on one of the bold numbers
you see more information about that restore point.
If no restore points have been created, no bold days will show up on
the calendar and clicking on any of the non bold days will not show
anything.

[Robert Reed]

I checked the "calender" and the only bold restore date was Saturday May 9 at exactly the time I logged off ealier in the day. So I guess all old dates were erased and the new date was auto installed at that time. well, its looks like I am right where I want to be -at least for a while