40 GB Install?

Thanks I got that System Volume Information down to just over 2GB now, so I got a ton of space back. Were any of the other items that I listed things I can consider removing?

It still seems that this Windows 7 installation is a bit heavier than I expected.

WinSxS is a do not touch folder. Don't mess with it.

Windows 7 folder seems to be close to the size of a Windows 7 32-bit installation disc. What's inside it?

The Win7 folder has the following folders:

boot
efi
sources
support
upgrade

and the following files:
autorun
bootmgr
setup.exe

That's the content of a Windows 7 installation disc. Now, if you didn't put it there - and it's your disk, delete it. Or you can try to investigate why that ended up on your disk, and proceed based on the results..

It's su casa, your decision...

J3ff said:

In my Windows folder I also have a folder called Winsxs that is 5,858.8 MB. Not sure if I need this folder?

Actually you don't "really" have that much stuff in C:\windows\winsxs. The tools (Windows explorer, TreesizePro, WindirStat) simply cannot read this properly. Look at this thread for more information on this commonly misunderstood folder.

WinSXS Folder not actually consuming lots of space

pparks1 said:

J3ff said:

In my Windows folder I also have a folder called Winsxs that is 5,858.8 MB. Not sure if I need this folder?

Actually you don't "really" have that much stuff in C:\windows\winsxs. The tools (Windows explorer, TreesizePro, WindirStat) simply cannot read this properly. Look at this thread for more information on this commonly misunderstood folder.

WinSXS Folder not actually consuming lots of space

This is true, but unfortunately academic and, as 7 of 9 would put it, irrelevant, because this myopic Explorer is unfortunately the one that decides when your disk is full.

Teerex said:

This is true, but unfortunately academic and, as 7 of 9 would put it, irrelevant, because this myopic Explorer is unfortunately the one that decides when your disk is full.

Go back and read the post that I linked to. I created a 200MB partition, then I put a 13MB file onto that partition in a folder. I hard linked to the file 20 times...so Windows explorer showed that folder was 267MB....even though the hard drive partition was only 200MB total in size.

Windows explorer CORRECTLY showed that my drive had around 170MB of free space.

So, my point is...that even though the WinSXS folder will grow and will appear to be 10-15GB in size....that's not actually disk space used and Windows Explorer "IS" smart enough to NOT count it when reporting the actual free space on the drive. However, if you run something like TreeSizePro you will be led to believe that you could get back 10-15GB if you deleted that folder....but it simply isn't true.

Oh I see it now.. Apologies for me being obtuse, this board is a constant learnin' experience..

This happens when you claim something without hard checking it, kids..


I admit I didn't really look into it, I just assumed.. cause I thought that the rest of the Windows folder is really that small.

So, it just reports the size of that folder wrong!

No apologies needed. It through me for a loop at first. It throws most people for a loop. Lots of people make the same assumptions. That's the reason that I posted that thread and showed others how they could test to see the same results.