Chiefly British

@hazardwarning I'm in the same boat with a hugely bloated Vista on an Acer laptop. The size problem is down to the winsxs folder. See this link:
http://www.thewindowsclub.com/winsxs-folder-windows-7-8
You can clean it up a bit with VSP1CLN.EXE. Just bear in mind that if you have Vista Service Pack 2 installed they have replaced that with compcln as explained in this site:
https://bcrawfordjr.wordpress.com/2009/08/08/windows-vista-service-pack-2-clean-up-tool-compcln-exe/
I did the compcln command but it only got me 1GB back so I think re-installing Windows is the way to go. Once I've done a clean re-install and removed some of the Acer bloatware I may use @matigo's VM method.

// @matigo

@indigo So am I. Sleeping is a problem.

@hazardwarning The balance of power between employers and employees is still not quite right.

// @matigo

@bazbt3 You have plums and @matigo has melons? What are you trying to say?

@indigo Yep.

@matigo If Ubuntu puts 1GB of files on a disk that's been added to the LVM, would that disk then appear 1GB smaller when viewed from another OS, or would it appear as the same size but just with less free space?

@matigo Looks quite easy but if you reboot into another OS on the same machine do your files now look weirdly spread out and confusing?

@jextxadore tries hard to remember these. At least the key combo is quite obvious. (I've just noticed the character on the Android keyboard. Saw no sign of it on iOS.

//@hazardwarning

I don't know how to do the tiny circle that means degrees.

@streakmachine '1080 Snowboarding' was good.