Thanks for the helpful tools. Do you know a good registry cleaner (preferably free) that you would recommend?

I have tested several open source AV programs and have found clamwin (http://www.clamwin.com/) to be most effective. On the spyware side Spybot S&D (http://www.safer-networking.org/index2.html) takes the lead.

Regcleaining is not usually a good idea but for users who are a bit savvy msicuu (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301) is an excellent tool

Iola - find out a software that deletes duplicate files.. or

check for the size of your paging file...

Right click My Computer > Properties > Advanced > Click on Settings button under performance label.

Click on Advanced Tab and here you are with the label Virtual Memory aka Paging

Click Change > System Managed size

Ok > Ok > Ok

Hope this would help..

I wish it won't work :)

Could you explain in  layman's terms as to what I just did and how it is going to affect the pc?

and ................that means...

I meant to say your RAM capacity to 'memorize' per se, would be better at a point in time...

Umm..you could have a worm taking up your space if your space is increasing...do you have an up-to-date AV?

Does it ever go frm 2G dwn?

Backup personal files (movies, songs, pics, etc) to an external hard drive and delete them from your system. You are running low on disk space and pretty soon your computer will slow down to a crawl.

Programs run in memory and when you minimize a window your computer essentially saves that window on the hard drive instead of system memory. The area on the hard drive that is reserved for this purpose is called a page file (pages, etc. are literally saved here).

This page file by default is about 1.5 times the size of system memory and expands dynamically and hence the different disk space usage that you have noticed. The more programs you run the more disk space will be consumed by the page file but this space will be recovered once you close running programs or reboot the PC.

Judging from your space usage, your system probably has 512 MB of memory (RAM)

Depends on which Operating system you are running. With Windows it's insufficient and should be upgraded to at least 2GB (Windows supports upto 4GB). However your immediate problem is disk space increasing RAM will require additional space for paging so you should consider upgrading to a larger drive as well.

To back up files, purchase an external hard drive and connect it to your computer using the cable (USB) that comes with it. Once your system installs the new drive it should show up under "My Computer" as an additional letter (E, maybe). Just copy and paste files from your local drive (C) to the new drive

Hope that helps Iola. You are Iola, right?

@ Iola,

Try another thing and do that frequently. MS Windows has a habit of saving a copy of the opened files in a folder called "Temp". Here's the path

C:\Documents and Settings\user_name\Local Settings\Temp

user_name: This is the folder with the name of your Windows Login Account. There are usually three common accounts, 'Administrator', 'All Users' & 'Default User'. Rest of the folders are the Accounts you have created yourself.

Local Settings: This is a hidden folder. You can enable 'Show hidden files and folders' option by going to 'My Computer' at the top menu click 'Tools' then 'Folder Options. In the pop up window click 'View' tab. Here check the 'Show hidden files and folders' options & click 'OK'.

Once you are in the 'Temp' folder press 'CTRL' and 'A' keys simultaneously. By doing that all files and folders will be selected, now simply press the delete button.

You can even check how much of your disk space those files are consuming. Once you have selected them by pressing 'CTRL' and 'A' keys simultaneously, the files and folders size is shown at the bottom right of the opened window.

Also check the following path for the same 'Temp' folder and delete its contents too.

C:\WINDOWS\Temp

This folder usually contains very few files, nonetheless, they are also garbage.

As for the 'Security' concern, I prefer using Avira AntiVir Personal - FREE Antivirus. You can download it from;

http://www.free-av.com/en/download/index.html

A good temporary files remover & registry cleaner for 'Novice' is Piriform CCleaner. You can download it directly from;

http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/

or alternatively from;

http://www.ccleaner.com/download

On the download page, click this link; Download from FileHippo.com

On the download page, click thsi link; DownloadDownload Latest Version

Hope this helps.

Desvidanya.

In the Temp files there were 5 read only files. I didn't delete them. Should I delete them too? Would be harmless? I mean wouldn't affect the working of the pc, would it?

Ok what about the questions I put earlier? About AVG and the registry.

Ok. What would you say about KKT's idea of getting an external drive? Is it badly required in my case?

Well great. Thanks a lot folks.