The system restore feature of windows can be absolutely great at times, for instance when you install some rouge drivers and safe mode just doesn't cut it. But hey, if you're careful, that won't happen right?
You can free up space in Windows Vista by simply removing all but 1 of these restore points, freeing up loads of disk space. When I did this, I freed up about 16GB worth of restore points that had been building up since god knows when.The amount of space you get back depends on how much is being used for system restore, and if system restore is enabled at all.
Warning: Make sure that you definitely don't need your old system restore points or shadow copies, because when you delete them you can't get them back.
So, to start, pop open your hard drive properties window by right clicking on its icon in "Computer" and selecting properties.
Next, hit the "Disk Cleanup" button.
On The "Disk Cleanup Options" dialouge box, hit the bottom option, "Files from all users on this computer", and accept the UAC prompt.
Click on the "More Options" tab, then click on the "Clean Up" button under "System Restore and Shadow Copies".
All of your old restore points will be erased, leaving you with the most recent one and giving you some extra space.
