Windows 7 compression bug fills up hard drive in Windows temp space

A couple times, I've seen a Windows 7 computer with no free hard drive space and tons of space used in c:\windows\temp.  The answer is in this article:
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3112358/microsoft-windows/windows-7-log-file-compression-bug-can-fill-up-your-hard-drive.html

It's some sort of bug in Windows.  The fix is:

1) stop the Windows Module Installer service
2) move all the files out of c:\windows\logs\cbs (I typically move them to c:\windows\logs\cbs.old)
3) delete all the files in c:\windows\temp
4) reboot

Computer replacement plan

I've often struggled with a hard and fast policy for replacing laptops in a business environment.  Some people swear by a 3 year rotation, some go up to 5 years.  Some use equipment until the old equipment wears out.  I've decided that this is what I'm going to recommend to my clients:

Laptops with conventional hard drives - replace after 3 years
Laptops with SSD hard drives - replace after 4 years
Desktops (aggressive) - replace after 4 years
Desktops (conservative) - replace after 5 years

This is as much about likelihood of failure as speed after a certain amount of time.

hard drive recovery software

I had a bad hard drive that didn't have a current backup, so I got a local repair ship to recover the data. I had tried to recover the data myself with one of those USB 2.0 to IDE/SATA devices, but Windows could see the drive, but not pull any data from it or see the file structure. It just wanted to reformat the disk.

The shop was able to recover the data, and they used File Scavenger and Disk Recoup made by Quetek here:

http://www.quetek.com/

Good to note for future failed hard drives.

removing hard drive from Sony Vaio VGN-SZ series

Twice in the last month I've had to remove the hard drive from a Sony VGN-SZ series laptop. The user guide doesn't help, but this web site does - it's beneath the keyboard which is relatively tough to get to.

http://laptoplogic.com/resources/detail.php?id=43