Among the many sections that we must take into account when measuring the performance of Windows or a PC, storage space greatly influences. At the same time we must take into account the processor that mounts the equipment , or the RAM that it has.
Although we have a somewhat older or limited computer in specifications, we can take some measures to improve the performance and use of Windows . As we mentioned, in addition to other components, everything related to storage space has a lot to do with it. And it is that this space in the disk drives that we are talking about, can help us greatly to work better with Windows 10.
In the case in which, either with the passage of time, or by making intensive use of the equipment, we see that we run out of space in the equipment , we can take certain measures. First of all, and since it’s easy to think, we can expand or change those physical storage units of the equipment. But of course, that has an important cost at times, something that not everyone can access.
Free up space from Windows by removing unnecessary programs
But in the same way, in order to free up space on these disk drives , we can gain it by freeing them from certain amounts of information. Of course we are talking about data that could be considered unnecessary in Windows, for which the system itself offers us some solutions. As an example, the possibility of deleting programs that we no longer use but have been installed on the system. This is something that we can do through the Settings app.
Once in the window that appears, we are located in the Applications and features section to see the corresponding list. Specifically, this refers to the programs that we currently have installed on Windows 10 . Therefore, we recommend you take a look at it for applications that we can remove. For this, it is enough that we place ourselves over its entry and click to show the Uninstall button.
As we can see first hand, this will sometimes help us recover even a few gigabytes of storage. However, Windows presents us with other options to achieve this that we discussed.
What is and how to remove pagefile.sys
Well, next we are going to show you one of those functions or tricks to free up space is Windows. We will achieve this through the file called pagefile.sys which in certain cases takes up a good amount of space. To give you an idea, it can perfectly occupy 10 gigs without doing anything in the system, something that can be increasing. And it is that Windows stores files temporarily to be able to access them faster and have better performance in case of low memory.
At this point, one of the ones that can take up the most is the aforementioned pagefile.sys in which we are going to focus on these same lines. The first thing to know is that it is actually a file of variable size that is part of the system itself, so it is not malicious. It is used internally to temporarily store some data that is in the physical RAM of the computer, that is, it can be considered as a backup of this physical memory. Normally we will find it in the root of the C: drive, although it is not always in sight.
Disable pagefile.sys in Windows
It is possible that if we have enough RAM in the computer, the system considers that this dump file is not necessary. It is also possible that it is simply hidden and we cannot see it from the Explorer. Be that as it may, we are going to show you how to disable it once and for all in Windows. To do this and in order to disable the use of the pagefile.sys file, the first thing we do is open the run box with the Win + R key combination.
In it we have to type the command sysdm.cpl in order to directly access the System Properties section. Well, in it we will have to go to the Advanced Options tab and click on Settings in the Performance area.
Then, in the new window that we see on the screen, we go back to Advanced Options / Change to access the section that really interests us. Here, the first thing we will do is disable the first option we see, Automatically manage paging file size for all drives .
After that, in order to deactivate pagefile.sys, what we have to do is activate the option No paging file, to accept and save the changes. What this does is that Windows 10 does not create this data dump file, which will save us a good amount of disk space.
Save space by disabling and deleting the hiberfil.sys file
Once we know about the pagefile.sys file, to save space in Windows, we can also get rid of another system file. In this case we refer to hiberfil.sys. This is a file used by the operating system to hibernate the computer. By this we mean that instead of turning it off completely, a copy of the RAM content is saved on the hard drive. Thus, when you turn it on again, it loads all that information, taking up your information as we left it and in a much faster way.
Keep in mind that the greater the RAM available on the computer, the more space this file to which we refer will occupy. That is why in certain circumstances we may be interested in deleting this file and thus saving some gigabytes that will never be too much. To achieve this, we will have to open a Command Prompt window through the CMD command that we enter in the search box. It is recommended to do this with administrator permissions.
Therefore, here what we are really going to do is deactivate the integrated hibernation service so that the system does not have to create that file . Thus, once in the corresponding CMD window with administrator permissions, initially we will only have to enter the following command: powercfg / h off.
In this way, once the change has been completed, the file we were mentioning will have disappeared from the computer and we will have more free gigabytes on disk.