![\"toolbar_log.txt\"](\"http:\/\/debradalgleish.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/toolbar_log.txt.png\" "\\"toolbar_log.txt\\"")
<\/p>\nLast December, I got a new laptop, and have been using it for most of my work since then. I store client files, blog posts, sample Excel files for my Contextures website, and a few too many digital photos.<\/p>\n
The laptop has about 1 TB of disk space, so I should be okay for a while \u2013 or so I thought.<\/p>\n
Last week, I noticed that the C drive was almost at capacity \u2013 it was showing a red bar in Windows Explorer. Yikes! I didn\u2019t ever run into that problem in the old laptop, and I used it for a few years.<\/p>\n
What was filling up the drive? Had I really taken so many photos that I\u2019d hit the limit?<\/p>\n
Then I noticed that my storage space had been split into 4 drives, and the C drive only had 186 GB. So, I moved all the photos, and some of the documents to the other drives, and that temporarily solved the problem.<\/p>\n
Then, a crisis hit \u2013 Outlook wouldn\u2019t open because it didn\u2019t have enough disk space. I moved a few more files to the other drives, emptied the Recycle Bin, and got Outlook running again. Whew!<\/p>\n
But I can\u2019t work like that \u2013 I don\u2019t want to be constantly worrying about disk space. What was filling up the disk, and how could I get that stuff into a different drive?<\/p>\n
I started through the folders again, checking each one\u2019s properties, and looking for unusually large items. Was a program taking more that its share of the space? Was Windows 8 the culprit.<\/p>\n
Finally, I found one of the Temp folders, in the AppData > Local directory, and it looked pretty full. Sometimes an installation file gets stuck in there, and they can be a few hundred MB in size. <\/p>\n
I sorted the list in descending order by file size, and was shocked to see this item at the top of the list. It was a text file, named toolbar_log.txt, and it was 53 GB!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Of course, Notepad++ couldn\u2019t open it, because it was so huge, so I couldn\u2019t see what was in the file. A Google search showed that it was a file created by the AVG security software, and other people were complaining about its size. <\/p>\n
The online information indicated that it was safe to delete the file, but AVG would just recreate it. <\/p>\n
So, I did, and as predicted, the file came back. As I watched in Windows Explorer, the file size increased every few seconds.<\/p>\n
I deleted it again, and followed the advice in one of the online comments \u2013 I set the file to Read Only.<\/p>\n
So far, so good \u2013 the file is about 500 KB, and holding. I haven\u2019t noticed any effects from changing the file to Read Only, except for the benefit of 53 GB of free space on my C drive.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll sort out the folders and files, to spread things around, not that the crisis is over. And I\u2019ll add a few Libraries, to make it easier to get to my files, after they\u2019re moved.<\/p>\n
I hope you never run into this problem, but if you have AVG installed, you might want to check for a file named toolbar_log.txt \u2013 and make sure it isn\u2019t eating up your space.<\/p>\n
___________<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"