Those on tiny hard drives know the daily struggle of juggling your files to avoid low storage space warnings. When you barely have enough hard drive space to run Windows, you need to save space in any way possible.

If you've already deleted all the excess data on your PC but need more space, there's another method you should consider: compacting the operating system. This can save around 1.5 GB on a 32-bit system or 2.6 GB for a 64-bit installation. Usually compacting the OS takes some commands at the Command Prompt, but there's a free tool that will do it easily for you instead.

The tool is called Dism++ and you can grab it from this forum post. You'll have to sign up for an account on the website to view it.

Once you've downloaded it, unzip the file and run either the Dism++ x64 or x86 version if you're using a 64-bit or 32-bit version of Windows, respectively. On the left sidebar, click the Disk Clean tab. Hit the None button at the bottom of the window to clear all check boxes, then check the Compact OS (Slower) box under the System header. Press the Scan button to analyze how much space this will save you.

The developers claim that this will save up to 33 percent disk space, but you'll have to give it a try yourself to see. Note that compacting the OS is really only useful for those with tiny drives. If you have some 100 GB of unused space, the small increase isn't worth compacting for. Thanks to MakeUseOf reader Yoda San for letting us know about this tool.

Still need to free up space? Check out large Windows folders you can safely delete.

Have you ever compacted your operating system? Let us know how much space this tool saved you in the comments!

Image Credit: Dan74 via Shutterstock