14 gig 7

[gregornz]

Hey

I'm using windows 7.

The 'windows' directory on the system drive is 13.8 gig big.

It's a real pain in the bum because I have my system drive partitioned off to 20 gig, so I am constantly running out of space.

I know I can ditch some unnecessary elements from windows to free up a little space, but I'm wondering if such a large size is due maybe to remnants of the copy of XP I had before I upgraded, or maybe its normal and I need to lose the partition?

Thanks for the help for such a silly question!

 

[Barman58]

To be honest 14 GB does not seem excessively large the actual size of the windows directory will be dependent, of course, on what you have installed programs wise.

I normally allocate around 60 - 80 GB for a windows OS to give breathing room

The minimums stated on the box are exactly that - minimums

 

[gregornz]

Sorry, I should have pointed out that i have installed practically nothing short of a browser and a media player, I install games and programs on another drive....

 

[garysgold]

Hello Gregornz,

Welcome to Seven Forums.

My window folder is 14.6 gb. So not unusual. By the time you install programs there isn't much room left for the pagefile and restore points.

Personally I wouldn't install Vista or Seven on any less than a 40 gig partition and 60 or 80 would be better. Mine is 100 gb and all of my personal files are on a separate partition.



Gary

 

[Barman58]

Due to the way that Windows 7 uses virtualisation to operate it may well be that your space usage will be a lot smaller than stated in real terms.

If you check the size of the WinSXS folder you will normally see a size of many GB when in reality this folder is quite small

This folder contains hard links, (like shortcuts), which point to .dll files at other locations on the system, including remotely installed items.

Unfortunately the file managers designed for windows including explorer see these files as real files with there actual size so a 1kb shortcut to a 100mb .dll will show a size of 100MB !

The only way to see the actual space usage is by means of a low level tool outside of windows (eg. a bootable disk tool).

My windows folder shows as a 16GB folder in an install of approx 40gGB including programs but not data if that helps to put your system into context, of this WinSXS is about 6GB - this is a 64 bit install so will be larger than a 32 bit due to the WOW64 overhead

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
Not sure why you are running out of space

Try this program TreeSizefree - I've attached it

Great way of displaying what's actually on your disks image also enclosed of what the output looks loke

Cheers
jimbo

 

[gregornz]

Thanks for the great answers guys!

Looks like I've got some un-partitioning to do!

 

[jfar]

Nice little program there jimbo45, Thanks.