Avast error?

[DrScientist]

Hello, I am new to this forum, so I hope I have this question in the right spot (I'm sorry if it's not).  I am a novice when it comes to computers, so bear with me.

I've been using the free Avast 4.8 Home Edition for the past two weeks.  My computer uses Windows 2000.  It had been working OK since I installed it, but just yesterday, I've been receiving a message.  Basically, before, Avast would pop up a blue window telling me that the virus database has been updated.  Now it pops up a red window telling me "An error has occurred while attempting to update", with another window telling me there is not enough space on the disk.  I tried to clean up some space, but I still get this message. So, I can't update the database.

According to my computer, I have 4.56 MB of free space, and a capacity of 4.00 GB (none of this really means anything to me, I'm afraid).

How much space does Avast need?  Is this normal? Is there any other way to clear up space on my computer? If anyone can help with this, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thank you.

[neiby]

Wow. If you really only have a little over 4 MB of free space, you *really* need to free up some room! I'm surprised your PC even functions. The system uses hard disk space to store some memory items. This is called swap space. How much RAM does your PC have? Double that number and that's how much swap space you should have. At least have 1.5 times that amount. And that doesn't even count any extra space you want to store other files.

Four GB is a very small main drive. Is buying a new drive a possibility? You can get a huge second drive for very little money and then move all of your programs and data to that one. That would leave only the operating system and swap space on your main drive.

[DavidR]

When you get to 80-85% capicity you really should be looking at a bigger disk. Windows will not even attempt a defrag if you have less than 15% free space.

You could try cleaning the junk on your system, I would normally recommend a program but you have so little space. I don't use w2k so I don't know if this will work with it, right click on your C:\ drive in explorer and select Properties, Disk Cleanup, see image and see how much you can free up, it might not be much.

[DrScientist]

Thanks for the quick replies.  I'll try your suggestions.  Although, I'll probably need to get a new computer at some point.

I got the computer used, from the company my brother in law works for.  They were upgrading all their old computers and replacing them with new ones. I just took one so I could go online, which is really all I use the computer for. 

The thing is, because it once belonged to a company, (it is a Compaq, if that matters), and is at least 5-6 years old, or older seeing as how they wanted to upgrade their computers, I think there are a lot of old files from whoever used to use it still on it. I'll go through my computer and delete any of the old files if I can.  I don't have any important files myself.  Think that would clear up some space?

Thanks again for the help!
 

[DavidR]

No problem, glad I could help.

I'm surprised if it was a ex company computer the HDD wasn't wiped clean.

Welcome to the forums.

[neiby]

If this is an older PC and you primarily use it for Internet access, I'd recommend wiping the whole thing and starting over with some flavor of linux. My favorite, which is *extremely* easy to use it PCLinuxOS. It's super easy to install, but you still might want to have someone help you if you don't trust yourself with the process. Linux will run a lot faster on that old equipment than Windows. It has a much smaller footprint and I think you'd enjoy the experience more, but that's just my opinion.

[Lisandro]

I'll suggest the same: Linux for old PCs.
I use Kubuntu as my favorite distro

[neiby]

I've never really tried Ubuntu or its variants for more than a passing glance. I used PCLinuxOS for a couple of months and loved it. However, there were a couple of applications that I used regularly that required Windows XP and I just got tired of dual booting. If it weren't for those apps (and some awesome games) I'd still be using linux as my main OS. Something like Kubuntu or PCLinuxOS would be perfect for an older machine.

[DavidR]

I would say starting from square on on a formatted system would be ill advised, given the reported computer experience level DrScientist mentioned.

Hello, I am new to this forum, so I hope I have this question in the right spot (I'm sorry if it's not).  I am a novice when it comes to computers, so bear with me.
<snip>

[Lisandro]

there were a couple of applications that I used regularly that required Windows XP and I just got tired of dual booting. If it weren't for those apps (and some awesome games) I'd still be using linux as my main OS.

Did you try emulation of Windows inside Linux? Like Wine?

[neiby]

Yes. I didn't really care for the way it worked at the time. Besides, the main application I'm thinking of is a very resource-intensive real-time audio application that needs to be highly tuned for the system to work properly. That's definitely not the sort of thing you want to try to run under Wine or the other VM tools.

Someday I may give it another shot, though. I sure loved the linux experience for the most part, but I already knew a little unix so the command line didn't scare me.

[alanrf]

David R said:

I would say starting from square on on a formatted system would be ill advised, given the reported computer experience level DrScientist mentioned.

From my recent personal experience with various Linux distros I would have to agree with DavidR 100%.

Perhaps the Linux discussion belongs somewhere other than DrScientist's thread.   

[rassel]

According to my computer, I have 4.56 MB of free space, and a capacity of 4.00 GB

Wow this is really little space you have and even my pendrive capacity space is larger than yours which is 4GB

[DrScientist]

Is there any reason why I might have so little space?  I know that might be hard to answer, but I don't really have that much stuff on my desktop.  The last things I installed were Avast and Comodos firewall.  What else could take up so much space?

[Lisandro]

What else could take up so much space?

TreeSize Free 2.1.0.82 could help to guess.
http://www.download.com/TreeSize-Free/3000-2248_4-10139400.html