The problem was occurring because of a few reasons. 1. 40 GB hard drive running Windows 7. It can be done, but it doesn't leave much extra space. 2. Students don't always use the same computer when logging in. In Windows 7, each time a user logs in over the domain, a user profile is created for that particular user if none exists yet. These folders are large in nature, but if a student has a lot of work saved, that will start to eat into the hard drive space.
So after students would log in so many times, Windows would run out of space and users would have trouble logging in. If they were able to log in at all, they would be greeted with this:
The number one solution for this problem would be getting larger hard drives. Luckily, we happened to recycle some old hardware this year and were able to pull some 80GB drives to help. We already have a FOG server setup, so pulling the images wouldn't be bad. We were able to use an existing image we already had from one of the business courses. That teacher teaches accounting and uses less resources with software like Microsoft Office and internet browsers. This is exactly what they needed in the library, as most students pull up their work through Google Docs anyway. Perfect.
The imaging process went smoothly. During this time, we changed how the computers were positioned. Previously, they were laying down. We stood them up to make some more room and managed the cables a little better. One computer needed a new mouse during this time, but everything else went fine. The end result:
Success!
Now that the computers were done imaging, I just had to go through and rename each one and add it back to the domain. A pretty quick process just be sure to follow the exact order listed.
Now that they have bigger hard drives, it will take a longer time to fill up than before. Have you had this issue? Here are some solutions:
1. Get a bigger sized hard drive. This is the fastest way, but costs the most money.
2. See what is taking up all the space on your drive with a program like SpaceSniffer. Don't see anything out of oridnary?
Find the program here
3. Remove old programs/files that aren't needed. This will free up some space. Just go through the usual Add/Remove programs and get rid of stuff not being used. If you remove stuff or don't have a lot of things installed on your computer in the first place, it could be malware on your system. Run a scan in safe mode with Malwarebytes or your favorite malware program.
4. Disable hibernate if not used. Disabling this can free up some space as hibernate will use the same amount of hard drive space as your RAM size. Ex: 4GB of RAM = 4GB of hard drive space being used. At a admin command prompt, type powercfg -h off to disable hibernation.
5. Run disk cleanup. Disk cleanup can give back a bunch of space that was previously being used by Windows and other programs.
6. Run CCleaner. This will delete things like disk cleanup, but can also delete temp files used by internet browsers, etc. Note: CCleaner only cleans files of the current user logged in and running the program. Periodically run this program, around 1-2 per month or as needed.
Find the program here
Check out the Tweak Guides site to see about changing other settings that computers with limited space my benefit from.
Guides can be found here
There is also a program I found for deleting user profiles that I intend to test on these computers as they start to fill up. It is called delprof2.
Find the program here
There you have it. A quick solution to the Windows is out of disk space errors and messages.
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