Thanks for all your help... right the information I know about my laptop is that its Aspire3694WLMi, Intel CeleronM Processor 440 (1.86GHz, 533MHz FSB, 1MB L2 Cache) 15.4" WXGA Acer CrystalBrite LCD (16ms) Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950, 80GB HDD, 512MB DDR2, 802.11b/g wireless Lan... If that makes any sense to you guys.
I also have 2 drives Drive C: is the one I use for all my games etc. with only 1.4GB free of 32.5GB and the other drive is 26.8GB is free of 32.2GB.
Dont know if any of this information helps at all? Thanks for helping me thus far.
There are a couple of things that you can do. First, 512 MB is not much RAM. Fortunately, DDR2 for laptops is pretty cheap right now. If your computer can handle it, I would suggest upgrading to 2 GB.
http://tinyurl.com/c8ymro <== Here are some nice cheap sets with free shipping from Newegg... To Free up some room, you could move your My Documents folder to the other partition (my My Documents folder is around 6 GB) which is not too difficult. Another option would be to make the C: partition larger. Moving the partitions around is a not so keen an idea, though if you back up your second drive (looks like it would fit on 1 DVD), then it should be no problem as the drive in danger would be the one that you are shrinking. In any case, you should move your My Documents Folder, I think.
This will take some time to complete once you finish the last step, but here is how to move your My Documents folder...
Click on the Start button and then right-click on My Documents.
Select Properties from the pop up menu.
In the My Documents Properties window, select "Move".
In the Select a Destination window, find your other hard drive partition (probably D:) and click on it to highlight it.
Now click on the Make New Folder button at the bottom left of the Select a Destination Window.
In place of New Folder type My Documents.
Now hit enter (or click the OK button in the Select a Destination Window).
Click on the OK button in the My Documents Properties window.
Windows will ask if you want to move your documents; click Yes.
Now wait as it moves all of your stuff...
After it has finished, let your computer cool/settle down for a while (not necessary with a desktop). Now it would probably be a good time to defragment your C: drive.
If this isn't straight forward enough, I can have a little more detailed tutorial up on my HubPages complete with pictures in a day or two.
I never did get to ask you... Have you set your System Restore to a resonable size? On a 40 GB HD, the default 12% takes up almost 5 GB. Set it to 2% or turn it off if you back up your system regularly.