As philo said, you need to look in My Computer. Your window should look
something like this:

http://www.microsoft.com/mspress/books/sampchap/6559/0735618968-02.gif

What figures do you see for "Total Size" and "Free Space"?

Click on Start and on the menu on the right you will see six "My" items.  My
Computer is the fifth item.

When I try to delete the files in the %temp% folder this message appears:

Cannot delete ~DF317B: Access is denied.

Make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not
currently in use.

how can I perform these tasks?

windows xp home edition

Don't worry about that...
but I just remembered something.

By default...XP has system restore set to a value way higher than is really
needed.
To gain room on your drive, set system restore to some minimal level.

Also. If your machine is a desktop
and hibernation is enabled, you might as well turn that off

Dominique

The advice on deleting the contents of the System Volume Information was
poor advice.

Description of the Low Disk Space Notification in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/285107

Disabling is not the best way to proceed.

You do not have enough free disk space on your C partition i.e. you need
a minimum of 15% of the partition free and preferably 20%. After you
have copied the Disk Defragmenter Report  I suggest you do what follows.

The default allocation to System Restore is 12% on your C partition
which is over generous. I would reduce it to 700 mb. Right click your My
Computer icon on the Desktop and select System Restore. Place the cursor
on your C drive select Settings but this time find the slider and drag
it to the left until it reads 700 mb and exit. When you get to the
Settings screen click on Apply and OK and exit.

Select Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk CleanUp to
Empty your Recycle Bin and Remove Temporary Internet Files. Also
select Start, All Programs, accessories, System Tools, Disk CleanUp,
More Options, System Restore and remove all but the latest System
Restore point.

I would be interested in  seeing a Disk Defragmenter report. Open Disk
Defragmenter and click on Analyse. Select  View Report and
click on Save As and Save. Now find VolumeC.txt in your My Documents
Folder and post a copy. Do this before running Disk Defragmenter as it
is more informative.

--

Hope  this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Not even close to being enough free space.  You will continue to have
a lot of problems.

<snipped>

You have a 40GB drive with 386MB free.

I am assuming you have some rather large files someplace and/or a lot of
them that you do not use on a daily/monthly/yearly basis.  In other words -
you need to do more than cleanup the system files - you need to organize and
move off YOUR files.

The last part of the advice I am giving you again in this thread has to do
with a tool called JDiskReport.  You will need Java installed - but it will
give you a graphical representation of where your space is.  You can use
that to figure out what you need to get off that 40GB drive and burned to
CD/DVD/external hard disk drive, etc.  Something obviously needs to go or
you need more space.

Now you need to free up space:

If you are comfortable with the stability of your system, you can delete the
uninstall files for the patches that Windows XP has installed...
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/spack.htm

You can run Disk Cleanup - built into Windows XP - to erase all but your
latest restore point and cleanup even more "loose files"..

How to use Disk Cleanup
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310312

You can turn off hibernation if it is on and you don't use it..

When you hibernate your computer, Windows saves the contents of the system's
memory to the hiberfil.sys file. As a result, the size of the hiberfil.sys
file will always equal the amount of physical memory in your system. If you
don't use the hibernate feature and want to recapture the space that Windows
uses for the hiberfil.sys file, perform the following steps:

- Start the Control Panel Power Options applet (go to Start, Settings,
Control Panel, and click Power Options).
- Select the Hibernate tab, clear the "Enable hibernation" check box, then
click OK; although you might think otherwise, selecting Never under the
"System hibernates" option on the Power Schemes tab doesn't delete the
hiberfil.sys file.
- Windows will remove the "System hibernates" option from the Power Schemes
tab and delete the hiberfil.sys file.

You can control how much space your System Restore can use...

1. Click Start, right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
2. Click the System Restore tab.
3. Highlight one of your drives (or C: if you only have one) and click on
the "Settings" button.
4. Change the percentage of disk space you wish to allow..  I suggest moving
the slider until you have just about 1GB (1024MB or close to that...)
5. Click OK.. Then Click OK again.

You can control how much space your Temporary Internet Files can utilize...

Empty your Temporary Internet Files and shrink the size it stores to a
size between 64MB and 128MB..

- Open ONE copy of Internet Explorer.
- Select TOOLS -> Internet Options.
- Under the General tab in the "Temporary Internet Files" section, do the
 following:
- Click on "Delete Cookies" (click OK)
- Click on "Settings" and change the "Amount of disk space to use:" to
  something between 64MB and 128MB. (It may be MUCH larger right
  now.)
- Click OK.
- Click on "Delete Files" and select to "Delete all offline contents"
  (the checkbox) and click OK. (If you had a LOT, this could take 2-10
  minutes or more.)
- Once it is done, click OK, close Internet Explorer, re-open Internet
 Explorer.

You can use an application that scans your system for log files and
temporary files and use that to get rid of those:

Ccleaner (Free!)
http://www.ccleaner.com/

Other ways to free up space..

SequoiaView
http://www.win.tue.nl/sequoiaview/

JDiskReport
http://www.jgoodies.com/freeware/jdiskreport/index.html

Those can help you visually discover where all the space is being used.

If you are concerned over less than 5GB of space total at any given time
being freed up on your hard disk drive - then something is wrong and
you would be better off spending a little and putting in a drive that is
likely 3-8 times as large as what you have not and not concerning
yourself over such a small amount of space OR you seriously need
to consider what you really need on the system and what should be
archived.

Basic housekeeping 101... - in an actual home, if your storage area gets
full - you either have to decide what you really should have in the storage
area and what could go or you have to find a new place to store stuff
that will accommodate everything you need.  You don't walk into a
warehouse of cars, look at the filing cabinet in the corner where
you keep all the records for the cars and decide that if you move it out of
the warehouse - you will have more room for cars. ;-)

If you think that 386MB is enough free space then wait till you read this:

The hard disk space requirements for Windows XP Service Pack 3
(947311) - Discusses the hard disk space requirements for installing
Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) on a computer on which
Windows XP is already installed.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947311/en-us

JS