How much space does a Program take up on my computer?

muskrat

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I want to move some of my programs from my computer to a thumb drive.Is there an easy way to know how many Gbytes the program takes up before I transfer it? I tried right clicking the desktop icon, but that doesn't work.
 

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maybe here:
size.png
 

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You trying to move the installation file to your thumb drive? You can't move folders from the Program Files or the Program Files (x86) to the thumb drive
 

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This is mostly wrong. Dunno how Windows calculates them.

@OP, you can go to X:/Program files or X:/Program files(x86) where X is the drive letter on which the program is installed, then right click the required program subfolder and see its properties to check the size. But this is still not the exact size because program components are stored at other locations as well.

   Warning
Most programs will NOT work just by copying the program subfolder as already said by VistaKing since they use registry keys in order to work
 
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There is not a good way to tell how much drive space a program takes. Aside from program files there may be 100s or registry entrys, temp files, and AppData folders included. You can't just move them as VistaKing already said, at least not expecting them to still work.
 
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This is mostly wrong. Most of them are just crap, dunno how Windows calculates them.

@OP, you can go to X:/Program files or X:/Program files(x86) where X is the drive letter on which the program is installed, then right click the required program subfolder and see its properties to check the size. But this is still not the exact size because program components are stored at other locations as well.

   Warning
Most programs will NOT work just by copying the program subfolder as already said by VistaKing since they use registry keys in order to work
I was not offended by your post. I did not interpret your post as saying that I had posted wrong info. I interpreted your post as saying that Microsoft delivers poor estimates via that screen. That said, be careful whenever you use the word wrong in a post. According to some studies, most Americans are strangely non confrontational. This means that they may just leave a forum rather than tell you that you offended them.

Even if you had directly called me wrong - saying that I posted a totally wrong answer. I'm a big boy; I can handle it. I would hope that I would simply discuss the issue via further post and remain friends.

I try to give the benefit of the doubt to those for whom English might not be their first language. And idioms must drive readers crazy. I find some posts by Brits and Aussies to be most educational. I make frequent use of my search engine accelerator. :-)


I say all of that to say this. What follows is some of my thinking/labor that went into the tiny post that I made. I don't mean for the info below to sound as if I'm being defensive due to be offended (which I was not):

I intentionally used the word maybe - which was meant to convey that the OP may find the desired info on that screen... and maybe not. I should have been clearer in my post. And since I've spoken about offending people. I'll make it clear that the term maybe was not meant in a condescending manner; but I can see how my short post could have been taken that way.

What my first post in this thread does not show is the labor/research that went into it.

I too had originally included a few words of warning about not moving program files to another location via the Windows (file) Explorer, but then I figured that it was presumptuous of me to assume that the OP (who used to words move and transfer) did not already know how to transfer program to a new location. It can be done. I was not going to get into how to do so and the issues that this can cause later on. (Although the last sentence in the OP does seem to indicate a certain knowledge level.)

Before I made that post, I compared the size for Abobe Reader XI (125MB) as reported in the screenshot to the size reported by various folder properties from within the Windows (file) Explorer.

This folder...
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe"
...indicates 115MB of space.

This folder...
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe"
...indicates another 7MB of space.

I'm not sure that I found all of the various Adobe folders sprinkled throughout the user's profiles; but adding up the ones that I located = ~2MB.

This came close to the 125MB, so I made that post.

I failed to include the size of this folder "C:\ProgramData\Adobe" (142MB) which is needed to run the app. This puts the info in that program and features window at less than 50% of the actual space occupied by the app. So, the info in my first tiny post was indeed crap. Maybe the OP will find this much more verbose post of more use... or maybe not :-)
 

My Computer

Computer type
Laptop
Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
Employer provided Dell Latitude
OS
W7 Pro SP1 64bit
CPU
i7
Memory
8GB
Graphics Card(s)
Intel HD Graphics
Hard Drives
crappy SSD
Antivirus
Employer mandated Symantec Endpoint Protection
Browser
Pale Moon 64bit, IE11 64bit & Chrome 64bit
   Warning
Most programs will NOT work just by copying the program subfolder as already said by VistaKing since they use registry keys in order to work


That's not entirely true. I do this with every single program I have except for a few that have registry edits needed or that need online authentication before they can be used.

It's more accurate to say that most programs WILL work this way. I have like a thousand programs that I have already installed on a hard drive. If I ever re-install Windows, the programs are already there for me to use, I do not have to re-install them all before I have to use them. On an oddball program that needs something extra like Visual C or a registry edit, I just run the installation file to that same location. Since all the files are already there, installation takes literally a second, regardless of how long it took originally.

So close to a thousand programs with only maybe 20 needing to actually be installed before I can use them, that's pretty good evidence that most programs will work that way. My photo edit programs, my messengers, office suites, pdf readers, benchmark programs, tons and tons of games, even the games that need the CD in the drive work... I'm old school. Works for me :p
 

My Computer

Computer type
PC/Desktop
OS
Windows 7
   Warning
Most programs will NOT work just by copying the program subfolder as already said by VistaKing since they use registry keys in order to work


That's not entirely true. I do this with every single program I have except for a few that have registry edits needed or that need online authentication before they can be used.

It's more accurate to say that most programs WILL work this way. I have like a thousand programs that I have already installed on a hard drive. If I ever re-install Windows, the programs are already there for me to use, I do not have to re-install them all before I have to use them. On an oddball program that needs something extra like Visual C or a registry edit, I just run the installation file to that same location. Since all the files are already there, installation takes literally a second, regardless of how long it took originally.

So close to a thousand programs with only maybe 20 needing to actually be installed before I can use them, that's pretty good evidence that most programs will work that way. My photo edit programs, my messengers, office suites, pdf readers, benchmark programs, tons and tons of games, even the games that need the CD in the drive work... I'm old school. Works for me :p
No he was right in saying, most programs will not work. which ones don't need the registry ro AppData? Some publishers make and distribute a portable version though and it is different.
 

My Computer

Computer type
PC/Desktop
Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
Home Built Desktop By DataTech
OS
Windows 7 Ultimate X64 SP1
CPU
Intel i5-2550K, Differing ~4.4-4.8GHz No built in GPU
Motherboard
ASUS P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3
Memory
16GB G.Skill Sniper 1866MHz @ 2133MHz 2x8GB
Graphics Card(s)
ASUS GTX650TIB-DC2OC-2GD5, (650TI Boost)
Sound Card
Onboard Realtek 5-1
Monitor(s) Displays
Samsung P2570HD
Screen Resolution
1920x1080
Hard Drives
Samsung 840 Pro 256GB SSD for OS, 500GB Seagate Constellation (Enterprise drive) for Data
PSU
Corsair HX650W
Case
Inwin Dragon Rider
Cooling
Hyper 212 EVO w/two Noctua fans, push-pull, @1300 RPM
Keyboard
E-Z Eyes, bright yellow keys with large characters
Mouse
steelseries SENSEI Laser Pro Gaming
Internet Speed
48-51Mbs Mbs down, 11 Mbs up Xfinity Cable
Antivirus
Norton Internet Security 2013
Browser
IE 10, Opera, Pale Moon if needed
Other Info
4 case fans, LG BluRay-RE, ASUS DVD-RW, Mr. Fusion power supply, 1.21 gigawatts.
@UsernameIssues, I think I was being misinterpreted. I was not trying to prove you wrong, I was JUST telling the truth of the size column. I see you already got my point. I'm sorry, English is not my native thing, my accent maybe quite different from you guys, so I can easily be misinterpreted! Cheers! :D

A Bards Tale said:
That's not entirely true. I do this with every single program I have except for a few that have registry edits needed or that need online authentication before they can be used.

It's more accurate to say that most programs WILL work this way. I have like a thousand programs that I have already installed on a hard drive. If I ever re-install Windows, the programs are already there for me to use, I do not have to re-install them all before I have to use them. On an oddball program that needs something extra like Visual C or a registry edit, I just run the installation file to that same location. Since all the files are already there, installation takes literally a second, regardless of how long it took originally.

So close to a thousand programs with only maybe 20 needing to actually be installed before I can use them, that's pretty good evidence that most programs will work that way. My photo edit programs, my messengers, office suites, pdf readers, benchmark programs, tons and tons of games, even the games that need the CD in the drive work... I'm old school. Works for me

Yeah you are right on your part. A good number programs do work just with copy-pasted data. That's why I used the word "most" at the beginning of the warning. For example, Team Viewer. We used trial copies of Team Viewer to have fun distracting guys in our college. But since installation was not possible on restricted account, we installed it on our own systems, and just copied-pasted the Program files data and it worked flawlessly.

Though, this method is not recommended and installation is always better.
 
I want to move some of my programs from my computer to a thumb drive.Is there an easy way to know how many Gbytes the program takes up before I transfer it? I tried right clicking the desktop icon, but that doesn't work.

If you are planning on putting them on a thumb drive to use in other random machines, I'm pretty certain the best way is with a portable version of the software because usually the drive letter will be different and that is where you get into problems unless you plan on changing drive letters each time as well, not to mention admin priv.

Also, truly portable software usually does not leave registry entries I don't think either, or removes them when you close program like how portable ccleaner works from what I have read. So to keep a real clean os you could even install portables on an internal drive and then decide you don't want the program anymore you can just delete the folder and it's completely gone(except for some things like skype may leave a settings folder in user data folder) but that is what I think truly portable means.

Something like world of warcraft or steam can be considered "portable" in that you just need to run the wow launcher or steam.exe again on the new os install without downloading 20 GB again heh, but it has to rebuild the initial install on the machine to work the first time. A portable app doesn't require that. At least this is how I understand portable Vs msi installer to mean.

Have you checked into something like portableapps.com? Nice little package that offers lots of portable versions of popular software you can carry around on usb with you and even checks for software updates when you open program. You don't even need to carry a usb stick with you, just use dropbox :-)
 
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OS
Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
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