How to reduce System Restore disk usage in Vista

The System Restore feature in Windows Vista and later can be very useful, however, over time disk usage can get out of hand and should be managed.

Under Vista, the size of the System Restore disk is managed using a command-line utility called vssadmin:

1. Open elevated command prompt (type: cmd in the start menu and hit CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER)
2. To display current usage and size, type:
vssadmin list shadowstorage
3. To change to a specific size, in gigabytes, type:
vssadmin resize shadowstorage /for=c: /on=c: /maxsize=4GB

Note: You can change the drive letter in the above command from "c:", and "maxsize=4GB" to your liking.

For adjusting the System Restore disk usage under Windows 7, see our FAQ -here-.