Maura van der Linden – Blog

When you install Vista on a computer that has a prior version of a Microsoft operating system on it, a lot of the information from the prior installation will be saved in a directory called Windows.old. If you have installed Vista multiple times, you may have more than one Windows.old directory.

Once your Vista install is up and seems stable, you may want to reclaim that space but will find you can’t merely delete the folder, even logged in as an administrator. There is a method provided to remove the directory but I didn’t know it until I stumbled upon it.

To remove the files from these old Windows installations, do the following.

1. Click on your Start button.
2. Click on Computer.
3. Right Click on your main hard disk.
4. Select Properties.
5. Click on the Disk Cleanup button.
6. Click on Files of all users in the popup.
7. Click on Continue.
8. Look through the list of file types and check the box next to Previous Windows Installation(s).
9. Click OK to perform the cleanup.

Hope this is helpful.

One of my computers is running Vista Home Premium edition and has a 65GB main drive. Since it’s one I only do limited things on (like writing), I saw no need to upgrade the operating system but, earlier this week, I looked at the hard drive space and noticed that it had suddenly gone down from about 30GB free to 1.5GB free. All this without my installing much in the way of new software or storing huge archives of documents.

Like any other person, my response was “What the heck?!?” Well, my response might have been a little more colorful, but you get the idea. After the surprise wore off and the usual suspects had been cleared, I proceeded to hunt around for an answer.

It turns out that one of the ways Vista protects your data and system is to create system restore points – to be able to restore your system to a previously stable state. It also keeps shadowcopies of your documents, in case they become corrupted. Usually Vista installs with a maximum space set (default is 10% of the total disk space, I believe). When this space is exceeded, Vista will begin deleting the oldest restore points and shadow copies to make room for the new ones.

For some reason, on the system this was happening on, the maximum size was set to unbounded. It could use ALL the space.

To clean up the files (but keep the last system restore point), you can perform the following:

1. Click on your Start Button.
2. Click on Computer.
3. Right Click on your main drive.
4. Select Properties.
5. Click on the Disk Cleanup button.
6. Select Files from all users.
7. Click Continue to authorize.
8. Click the More Options tab.
9. Click the Clean Up button under System Restore and Shadow Copies section.
10. Click Delete to confirm.

There is a way to set the size limit of the Shadow Copies yourself but it’s more complex and easier to mess up than is probably appropriate for this blog. You’re welcome to contact me using the Contact Form if you need me to tell you how to do it.

Today’s question is an interesting one. I was asked what in the world is going on when the shift key is hold down too long and the computer suddenly starts typing in all caps and the only way to get it to stop is to turn off the computer.

Well, although it’s not obvious and can make your computer appear as if it has developed a desire to make you insane, it’s actually because of the Accessibility Features that are built into Windows. These features are designed to make it easier for people with disabilities or problems to use the computer and have keyboard shortcuts (specific key sequences that will allow the user to turn them on or off without opening the Control Panel) assigned by default.

In this case, the feature being turned on is called “FilterKeys” and is intended to allow the operating system to ignore multiple uses of the same key in a very short period of time. The keyboard shortcut for FilterKeys is holding down the left shift key for eight seconds (or longer). Thus, if you are distracted and accidentally hold down the left shift key and activate FilterKeys, you may have no real idea what happened.

To turn FilterKeys back off, you can repeat the step of holding down the left shift key for eight seconds. However, if you do not actually need the feature, it’s often easier to turn off the keyboard shortcut so you do not automatically trigger it.

The steps to do this are:

This will stop you from accidentally activating this accessibility option in the future!