Windows 7 C drive almost full and lagging, RAM issue?

[mpack]

It seems other mac users are having the same problems I see in another thread, looks like its to do with retina models and if you put scale factor to 200% so fits screen programs seem to become laggy.

Other way around. The screen was already laggy because Retina involves shifting a huge number of pixels. Setting the scale factor to 200% reduces the pixel count by /4, for obvious benefits.

[sixpack13]

under windows in an admin (?) terminal:

powercfg -H off

removes the unneeded space/file for hibernation on c:\ if it exists
viewable with settings => folder options => show hidden system files (or the like)

I usually set my swapfile size to 100 MB only.
AFAIC swapping goes via host (don't know if so on MAC too ?)

my Win7 Home Premium (without any app installed) is ~ 10 GB only (filled space)

in german "Computer Schutz" => in engl. "System recovery" ?
system setting => system => System recovery to OFF (free the needed size too)
- it's the same IF where you resized your swap, but another tab there -

you are also able to remove
C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\

it carries all Updates and some telemetry (!)

maybe you need to stop the update service before and set automatically searching for update to "never" and maybe the service for WER (telemetry) [ see also running tasks]

my Updates (security Updates only) in any case come from
http://www.wsusoffline.net/

you need to copy the client tree after fetching the updates to c:\ (2-3 GB), cause starting from a share doesn't work for me - maybe on an MAC -

[WelshMatt983]

Also but I double my RAM from 8gb to 16gb do you think I will notice much difference in your opinion?

You will notice that the host has more RAM, which would allow you to give more to the guest. HOWEVER, 2GB in my opinion is already plenty for a Win7-32bit guest. If you are running Windows apps that are especially RAM hungry then I wouldn't have created a 32bit VM!

In your opinion would it be better for me to get rid of Windows 7 32bit and go for 64bit version?

Is there an easy way to upgrade rather than deleting everything and reinstalling?

[mpack]

Win64 is not better in any absolute sense. For example the performance is not better. Win7-64bit is necessary if you needed to run 64bit applications, and particularly those very memory hungry applications such as 3D CAD.

Otherwise: you wouldn't be able to tell the difference with most apps, especially since your host doesn't have enough RAM to make a 64bit VM shine.

On the other hand, it is more customary these days to install a 64bit OS, regardless of the logical justifications.

But no, I would not recommend tearing down a working 32bit VM in order to install a 64bit VM. However, there is no law that says you can't have both. I'm pretty sure you'd need a separate license for the 64bit Windows anyway.