Today I’ve encountered a storage shortage problem during updating the Symmantec Antivirus on Windows Server 2003 VM, Symmantec kept complaining my server didn’t have enough space as first it requires downloading 300MB files on to C drive, then another 300MB or more for updating the files.

So I’ve removed all those hidden $service_pack_files (it’s absolutely safe to do so, of course if you do not need to roll back any of those hotfixs), I soon found out that I was still short of space, huh? Finally, I was able to squeeze another 100MB disk space by removing the all those older than 1 month Temporary ASP.NET Files under C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework, do it both for version 1.1 and 2.0 folders.

Of course if that doesn’t work, I still can add some GB to the VMDK, then use Acronis Disk Director to shift the empty space to C partition (as I have D and E drives as well), boot up the VM, then use Dell’s ExtPart to extend it on the fly, but since the above works, I didn’t bother. Obviously if you only have a big C drive, then it’s much easier, just add more space to it and then extend on the fly if it’s W2K8 or use ExtPart if it’s W2K3.

I read it somewhere the best recommended free space for C drive is 10GB for Windows Server 2003 and 20GB for Windows Server 2008.