Stay on top of the latest XP tips and tricks with our free Windows XP newsletter, delivered each Thursday. Automatically sign up today!

If the vast amount of available space on your
hard disk is dwindling, you’re probably wondering where all that
space has gone. To figure that out, you may open Windows Explorer
and look for the folder or folders that are using up all the hard
disk space. Or, you can save some time by right-clicking each
folder, selecting Properties, and checking the Size report on the
General tab.

However, an even better way to gather the
information you want is to use the Windows Support Tools’ Diruse
command line tool. In its basic syntax, the Diruse command displays
the number of files in each folder and the total size of the folder
in bytes in a nice tabular format. By using the optional
parameters, you can configure the Diruse command to focus on
specific folders and report folder size in kilobytes or in
megabytes. Other parameters will even allow you to flag folders
that exceed a size that you specify.

To use the Diruse command line tool, you’ll
need to
download and install Windows XP Service Pack 2 Support Tools
(this assumes that you’ve installed SP2).