Turning Off Low Disk Space Warnings in Windows Vista / 7
I’ve already run into one major annoyance in Windows 7, and that is the constant nagging about having low disk space on my WINDOWSSWAP partition. No freakin’ duh, Microsoft. This has been a problem since XP, but Microsoft changed things a bit in Windows Vista, and presumably things remain the same in Windows 7.
No, there is no GUI to tweak the low disk space warnings. You have to use the registry. No, you can’t manipulate the amount of space. I’ve tried setting it to 5MB and Windows 7 is still bugging me about the paltry 5.18MB left on my WINDOWSSWAP. No, there is no way to tweak individual drives. It’s all-or-nothing.
- Open up an Administrator Command Prompt by holding [Shift] + [Ctrl] while you either double-click a shortcut to cmd.exe, or run cmd.exe from the search/run box.
- Type regedit and press [Enter]. Yes, we could have regedit from a shortcut or from the search/run box, but we need Administrator privileges to do what the next step.
- Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Search\Gathering Manager. Right-click on the key and select Permissions. Press the Advanced button, and then click the Owner tab. Select your Administrator account and then click OK.
- Create a reg file with the following contents, and save it anywhere:Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Policies\\Explorer]
“NoLowDiskSpaceChecks”=dword:00000001[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows Search\\Gathering Manager]
“BackOffLowDiskThresholdMB”=dword:00000000[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows Search\\Gather]
“LowDiskMinimumMBytes”=dword:00000000 - Import the reg file. You can do this by:
- Using the command prompt, typing in the full path to the file name (ex: C:\Users\you\Desktop\disable-lowdisk.reg)
- Using the Registry Editor’s File > Import and using the horrible Vista/7 open file dialog box.
- Download Sushi’s DriveInfo Gadget Fixed By Switch. Now you can keep tabs on free disk space yourself.
Anonymous, 
The Brainwrecked Tech 
Anonymous 9:21 am on June 15, 2009 Permalink |
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Policies\\Explorer]
“NoLowDiskSpaceChecks”=dword:00000001
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows Search\\Gathering Manager]
“BackOffLowDiskThresholdMB”=dword:00000000
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows Search\\Gather]
“LowDiskMinimumMBytes”=dword:00000000
brainwreckedtech 6:32 pm on June 15, 2009 Permalink |
Thanks. That isn’t the first time WordPress has completely eradicated special characters on me. I don’t think something like that would have escaped my attention, but nonetheless the fact remains my post had missing backslashes all around.
Tibi 5:40 am on August 6, 2009 Permalink |
thx I think it might just work, but i used it with only one backspace not two
teknoman 5:31 pm on December 2, 2010 Permalink |
THANK YOU!
I kept getting “error accessing registry” so I thought it was a permissions issue. But changing the all of the \\ to \ got it to work, thanks!
bk 2:21 pm on August 27, 2013 Permalink |
thanks for the comment about changing all the \\ to \, solved the same error for me too!
Aaron 8:35 pm on February 13, 2010 Permalink |
If you wanna disable notifications of low disk space in Windows 7 without editing registry go to Control Panel type in “Notification Area Icons” no quotes into the search pane and click “Show or Hide the notification area in the Taskbar” and where it says Windows Explorer Low Disk Space click the drop down box next to it and choose “Hide icon and notifications”
brainwreckedtech 12:32 pm on March 24, 2010 Permalink |
If this works, it’d sure be a lot simpler. I’d prefer if the notification weren’t generated in the first place, but not everyone likes to putz with the registry. My biggest fear is that disabling the notification this way might disable something else. Depends on weather or not the System Tray’s customization list goes by actual title or by the executable that generated that title. (IOW, the title is just a place-holder so you dont see a .exe file.)
BrainwreckedTech 11:26 pm on August 26, 2010 Permalink |
Just finished installing Windows 7 again after a hard drive failure. My assumptions were correct. The entry is listed like this:
Windows Explorer
Low Disk Space
You’ll be disabling Windows Explorer from generating ANY messages using this method, not just the Low Disk Space warnings.
Anonymous 12:21 pm on November 26, 2010 Permalink |
that was great. thanks
Joshua Brooks 9:20 am on April 12, 2010 Permalink |
Thanks Aaron, I’m hope it works.
Fragen zu Windows 7 - Seite 6 - TweakPC Hardware Forum 5:29 pm on August 31, 2011 Permalink |
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Windows 8 Developer Preview: Dual Boot with Windows 7 Enterprise (Bitlocker enabled) inside a VHD on a Dell E6510 « My experience with Microsoft technology 4:25 pm on September 27, 2011 Permalink |
[…] Because I decided to install windows in a VHD I faced two problems. First Windows notifed about my full hard disk (the one the VHD resides on) ok so what. To disable that you have to change the registry follwing this post. […]
Marc-André 10:55 am on December 15, 2011 Permalink |
Yeah… disable things like bluetooth notification and other stuff!!!!